


Secret of the Silver Bow

by ToThineOwnSelfBeTrue102



Series: Secret of the Silver Bow [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-11
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-09 15:31:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToThineOwnSelfBeTrue102/pseuds/ToThineOwnSelfBeTrue102
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shamrock Orion Clover didn't think his life could get much worse. As usual he was wrong. Very wrong. Just his luck, his mother is Artemis. When he heads to Camp Half-Blood his life gets much harder, especially after the campers get kidnapped. Now he must rescue the campers, who admittedly he doesn't really like, from a fate that no one deserves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Secrets of the Silver Bow 

One

I’ll Be the Son of a Virgin

A mind stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions – Oliver Windell Holmes

Keep going you are almost upon your pray! My instinct screamed at me to keep going but, I wasn’t after the hellhound that I had been chasing. I was just happy to be free. The moon was full and glowing brilliant silver, the forest was dark and there was a beauty unbeknown to those who had never been in the forest at night. I was free. I listened to my instincts and kept going but soon another sound took over, music. Music in the forest it sound like an old Greek tune Apollo had made me listen to on the lunar eclipse. It was happy and I could hear laughter distantly perhaps 500 yards into the brush. NO! Not that way! What? I hesitated for a moment, I thought about listening then I decided to do something I had never done before, go against what my instinct wanted, after all it was just my gut . 

I made off for the source of the noise but stopped about 100 meters from it. I bent down in the underbrush and slowly began to stalk the noise like a Hunter stalks it’s pray. I hoped my black clothes kept me well hidden. When I got visual on the group I saw about two dozen girls dancing in sliver tunics, their hair was braided and all of them were small but strong looking and seemed like people you wouldn’t want to mess with. One was playing a silver lyre on the side lines. One had a silver tiara on her head, a pageant queen in the middle of the forest? The music ended and they stopped dancing. One of them went up to the lyre player.

“My lady,” She said but after that I stopped listening it had hit me, the silver tiara, the dancing under the full moon, and the music of the festival of Artemis. 

“Crap.” I said I had run head on to the Huntresses of Artemis and needless to say I wish I hadn’t. The red head who had spoken to the Lyre player’s head snapped up she looked in my direction, her eyes narrowed and she walked right over to where I was hiding and stood me up. Her bright green eyes full of distaste and hate. 

“It’s a boy!” She said the word boy like it was a horrible disease; then again she was a huntress a fiery one at that, she also had a faint accent I couldn’t quite place. English? No not cocky enough. Scottish? No not harsh enough. Irish? Possibly, it was like a soft melody. She dragged me into the clearing and tossed me onto the ground in front of the lyre player.

-3rd-

Quickly Lady Artemis analyzed the boy. 5’4” Auburn hair and silvery green eyes, holding a sliver bow almost identical to hers but with one difference it had Shamrock carved onto it. Grace threw him to the ground with surprising force.

“Spying on the hunt.” She said “Shall we kill him my lady?” She drew her bow and aimed it at him.

“No, Grace, let me have… fun with him first.” Artemis said smirking.

-Shamrock-

The lyre player had decided to have fun with me? I got the feeling that I wouldn’t like it one bit. I stood up, dusted myself off and faced the girl who had tossed me to the ground. 

“You are annoying.” I said then I turned to face the tiara girl. “I see you have won the beauty pageant.” She growled at me. I turned to the lyre player. “Fun you want to have fun with me what on earth does that mean?” 

“Do you know who you’re talking to boy?” The red head snarled. 

“Nope.” I said popping the P. 

“You are speaking to Lady Artemis.” She said.

“Ah, goddess of the hunt, virginity, fertility, and child birth. What do virginity and fertility have to do with each other?” I asked sarcastically as I already knew.

“They are different stages of the girl’s life.” The way she said was like I was three and a half and too you to understand that.

“Really? I had no Idea.” I said extremely sarcastically. 

“You didn’t?” She asked raising an eyebrow. Okay so sarcasm goes in one ear and out the other I thought to myself. 

“Never mind, but didn’t man conquer the moon and name the missions Apollo?” I asked. If I were you I would shut up NOW! My instinct screamed at me.

“They named those missions wrongly in fact one person tried to correct them but they disregarded the young Demi god.” She said 

“They’re naming the missions to Mars Orion. Didn’t you kill him?” I taunted. 

“Be, quiet.” She said in a dangerously low voice. I would shut up now! My instinct screamed.

“Your only lover killed by you.” I said her face was as unreadable as mine but her eyes showed years of pain and sadness. I knew I should avoid this topic as Apollo had told me, it was a touchy subject, but I couldn’t resist. “He loved you dearly, was your best friend and how do you repay him? You kill him kind of like Romeo and Juliet but you get live.” This was too much for her as she leapt into the air and kicked me hard in the chest I was thrown about five feet into the brush and landed with a dull thud! I got up and lunged at her. You deserved it for not listening to me. My instinct scolded me as we fought. I kicked her with the same force as she had kicked me but she went only two feet. I leapt up and soon we were locked in a fierce hand-to-hand combat. Thinking won’t work. I have to let instinct take over I thought. Then I completely lost control I handed the controls to my instinct which for some reason always gets me in trouble. Artemis fought like she was from Sparta. Then I realized her brother had probably trained in Sparta and she had learned from watching him. I also realized I was going to lose this match and, when I did, it wouldn’t be pretty. With a start I realized I had spent too much time thinking and didn’t realize I had been knocked to the ground, her knees in my chest and was sure she was going to kill me when, Apollo ran into the clearing.

“Sis! Stop! Don’t kill him!” He yelled. Artemis froze, her blade poised for the strike. Apollo’s hair was messy and his shirt covered in dirt, I guessed her had been looking for me for some time.

"Apollo?” Artemis and I said at the same time. He came to a halt and met two dozen arrow points. “Stand down.” Artemis told the hunters they lowered their bows and backed up. Apollo walked over to where I was, pulled me up and handed me some ambrosia, which I ate quickly. “Why can’t I kill him?” Artemis pouted, I guess she had wanted to kill me more than I had thought.

“Because you’ll regret it, trust me.” Apollo said.

“Why will I regret it Apollo?” She asked and from the look on her face and the tone of her voice, if I was Apollo I would have told her. But he didn’t he just pulled me to my feet and looked at Artemis.

“Just trust me on this one.” Apollo said. “Come on Shamrock.” He led me out of the clearing and to the sun chariot. He pointed to the passenger side pointed in a silent command to get in and I got in he took to the skies and we were off. “Why did you go hunting? I thought I told you to stay at home tonight.” 

“Why did you tell me to stay out of the forest? The forest is my home; nothing you say will ever change that. Why were you so eager to keep me in the house?” I asked. He gripped the wheel hard.

“I knew they were out there, I didn’t want to risk it.” He said after a long uncomfortable silence.

“Why? You weren’t worried about my death, it was just about who killed me.” I spat.

“Shamrock, it’s complicated.” He sighed.

“I’m smart.” I argued

“It’s a long story”

“We got time.”

“Okay then. I’ll give you the short version. You are her son, and she doesn’t know. You were the godly equivalent of a test tube baby.” Apollo said.

“WHAT! That 12 year old brat and her followers are my FAMILY?!” I said rather exasperated.

“Actually only three of them are your cousins and aunt.” He said obviously trying to make me feel better.

“Oh and you only thought to mention this now!” I yelled as we pulled into the driveway.

“Look I’ll talk to you tomorrow evening until then, stay in the house.” He said repeating his earlier command

-3rd-

As soon as Grace’s head hit the pillow she was engulfed in a dream. She was back on the boat that had brought her to America in 1910; the ocean was tossing beneath them. She remembered this day well.  
They had been out at sea for weeks and the last week had been spent in a storm being tossed around like potatoes in a sack. They were all seasick, children were crying, babies screaming, it was a horrible place to spend six weeks in.

The scene changed and she was in the line to go into America on Elis Island. The doctor looked at her, she blinked, and her eye was a bright red, not a good color. There had been a sickness on the ship and already three children had been sent away from their families, screaming in other languages. The doctor shook his head and wrote an E on the back of her jacket in blue chalk and pushes her through a door. A nurse picked her baby sister up and dragged Grace away from her twin siblings who, and she starts screaming she is dragged into the hospital. The doors slam, the dream ends.

Needing to let out her anger. Grace crawled out of the tent and took an old piece of blue chalk out of her bag and wrote a large E on the trunk of a tree and began to fire arrow in the shape of and E.  
Thud! Thud! Thud!

Each arrow hit its mark and started to take the shape of an E. In her white nightgown, Grace was freezing, she didn’t care though. Soon tears were streaming down her face. 

“Grace?” A voice from behind her said. Grace turned and there was Lady Artemis she bowed.

“Yes my lady?” Grace asked.

“Are you alright?” She asked, concerned.

Grace sighed...“They took me from my family and when I got them back I went to work in a factory no one cared.” Grace sunk to her knees at the memory. Artemis sat next to her and hugged her. 

“Often times no one does care, I only had Zeus and Apollo growing up and frankly, while I loved Apollo, he often thought of me as an annoying little sister even though I was older. Zeus wasn’t the best father, he could barely remember my name, but who we are is made through our experiences; I became an eternal virgin when I saw Hera yelling at Zeus about baby Perseus. I decided I didn’t want that kind of heart break so I became and eternal virgin.” She said, Grace had stopped crying and looked up at Lady Artemis.

“I know, but they are sometimes so cruel.” Grace said.

“Exactly, but sometimes they are what we need.” Artemis said, by now Apollo was just rising over the horizon and the camp was waking up.

“Grace are you alright?” Thalia asked, she was standing in her silver huntress pajamas were not that different from Grace’s own 

“I’m fine.” She reassured, standing up.

“Okay everyone get dressed we are going to show that boy that he can’t mess with Artemis and get away with it.” Artemis said giving an evil grin that practically screamed Ares  
Shamrock

“SHAMROCK!” Apollo yelled from down stairs, effectively waking me up from my nonexistent sleep.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“I’m leaving, remember, stay in the house.” Apollo said reminding me to stay inside like a good boy for the hundredth time. I ran down the stairs in my pajamas.

“Okay.” I said.

“I put breakfast on the table.” He said and ran out the door. After I showered quickly and dressed, I was sitting down to breakfast when I heard the leaves rustle outside. I looked out the window and saw a flash of red. 

“Crap.” I muttered to myself, they had found me. I ran into the garage where Apollo had left his back up sun chariot. I realized that it was the one that drove on manual; he took the one on auto pilot. I jumped in and tried to turn it on. When it wouldn’t start I looked at the gas gage and realized it was on empty. “Thanks’ Apollo.” I jumped out and saw that standing in front of me, it was the red haired huntress.

“I see the girl scouts have found me.” I said looking at the red head one, Grace. She was wearing a sliver huntress shirt and jean and her eyes were red and puffy. “What’s wrong with your eyes?” I had clearly touched a nerve because she punched me hard in the face. “Gods I just wanted to know if you were okay. You didn’t have to hurt me.” 

“Don’t even think about it, I am fine, and what does it matter to you?” She said and began to fight me. She kicked, I ducked. She only landed one kick square in my chest but she sent me flying back two meters into the cans of paint. She had a graceful beauty to the way she fought, I guess that why they called her Grace.

“Grace! Let him be. Thalia, tie him up and take him inside.” Artemis ordered. They tied me up and went inside. Thalia pushed me into a chair in the dining room and tied my hands and fee to it.

“I have to credit you that was quite impressive, Grace.” I said Grace narrowed her green eyes and sat on the counter. “So why are you here?” 

“I want answers.” Artemis demanded. “Why wouldn’t my brother let me kill you?” 

“I don’t know, why don’t you ask him.” I said and she turned around, standing in the door way was Apollo. 

“What are you doing here?” Artemis asked.

“It got cloudy.” Apollo shrugged. “Now what do you want to know?” 

“Who is he?” She asked.

“Your son.” Apollo said simply.

“B-but I haven’t broken my virgin oath.” Artemis stuttered in surprise.

“I know, it was an experiment. We called it the Artemis experiment; it was essentially to make a test tube baby to see if it would work for the gods, so you could have a baby. Athena donated her egg because she had brain children and no one would suspect it if she had another child. It was top secret, so only three people knew about it, me, Athena, and Aphrodite. Aphrodite chose who the father would be. Well time passed and when he came along looking nothing like Athena I asked ‘Aphrodite who’s the mother?’ her response was ‘Well I couldn’t find and egg sample of Athena so I choose Artemis’ Athena and I gaped at her we knew she had chosen Artemis because she hated her. ‘Apollo you have to kill the child.’ Athena said but I couldn’t do it so I raised him myself.” Apollo finished.

“Why didn’t Athena mention this?” Artemis asked, untying me and giving me a hug while I stood there like an idiot.

“She thought I had killed the child and so did Aphrodite.” Apollo said.

“I’m sorry about the black eye.” Grace said not sounding sorry at all.

“It’s okay.” I said sarcastically. “But what are we going to do? Now that the secrets out I’ll be killed.” I said;

“No, you won’t. Go to camp half blood and become a huntress, um, hunter.” Artemis said.

“Um mom?” I said. “Can you please let me breathe?” She let me go.

“Oh um, Grace, Thalia and Emily will escort you to camp. Now go!” Artemis said.

“Yes Lady Artemis.” They said but I could tell they weren’t happy about it. Thalia glared at me and Grace merely cocked her head as if studying me, her eyes full of hate. When we finally decided to stop for the night, they told me we were half way there. Apparently Grace and I had to go get firewood so we separated from the group.

“So, Grace I’m wondering, you have a soft accent, where do you hail from?” I asked, she tossed her long red hair over her shoulder and turned to me, her arms folded across her chest.

“Look, I don’t know why I’m here, but I need to warn you now, my past is a touchy subject.” She said I looked at her.

“How?” He eyes turned a darker shade of green.

“It just is.” She snapped and ran back to camp, leaving me to find my way back with the fire wood.

Finding my way aback was easy, but getting the firewood there wasn’t. I kept dropping it on my foot, luckily I didn’t trip, I just never had been that kind of person. Anyway I got back to camp and Thalia and Emily were sitting in the clearing, four sleeping bags had been set up. Grace was nowhere in sight.

“Where is Grace?” Thalia asked, Emily fingered her dagger.

“She was mad at me and ran off, I thought she came here.” I said. 

“No she didn’t, why was she mad at you?” Thalia asked.

“I don’t know, I was just trying to be mister nice guy and get to know her.” I said, shrugging and set down the firewood. 

“What did you ask her?” Thalia pushed.

“Is this twenty Questions?” I asked annoyed, Thalia looked at me, electricity running through her eyes and over her body. “Okay don’t make me look like I touched a power line. I only asked her where she hailed from.” 

“You did WHAT?” Emily yelled her brown eyes widening. “Her past is not a subject she likes to talk about, only Zoë Nightshade knew what happened.”

“Which one is Zoë?” I asked, they got a sad look on their faces. 

“She was the Lieutenant of Artemis before me,” Thalia said. “She was killed by her father, the Titan Atlas.” 

“I’m sorry, she must have been wonderful.” I said. Thalia nodded and put her head down I thought I saw a tear roll down her cheek but I shrugged it off. 

“We have to find Grace, she does rash things when she’s angry.” Thalia asked.

“Like what?” I asked and we heard a roar of anger and something snap. Then Grace ran into the clearing, directly at me. I stepped out of her way but that didn’t seem to faze her she leapt at me and Thalia grabbed the back of her tunic.

“Grace, Lady Artemis said not to hurt him. Go sit down” She ordered Grace nodded and went to sit on her sleeping bag her eyes glistening with unshed tears. I would have felt bad for her if she wasn’t so annoying. Thalia took the fire wood from me and got the fire going and Emily brought dinner and I was instructed to find a sleeping bag and stay there so I choose the one next to Grace, hoping to apologize for prying. That’s just the kind of guy I am, but she was asleep in seconds. 

I fell asleep but was woken at about midnight to a shuffling noise. I looked over and Emily who was on one side of me, she was sound asleep but Grace, who was on the other side of me was wriggling about quite a bit. I sighed, seeing as I wasn’t going to get any sleep with her there, I decided to take a walk.

While walking, I had time to think things over. I remembered what my life had been like before I found the hunt. 

For six years, Apollo kept me cooped up inside and never let me more than a hundred feet from the house, When I was seven I had enough and went into Apollo’s closet (Something he had told me I could never do) and found a long thin box in it. I opened it and inside was a silver bow with a pattern of leaves on it. I picked it up and saw it had my name on it; literally Shamrock was carved into the side. I sighed, it was beautiful, that night I found arrows and went hunting for the first time. I hadn’t needed any practice. 

For the first time in my short little meaningless life, I was free. This was the first time I hadn’t felt so much hate for myself. I had never been able to do anything right before and I hated myself for it. Out here I still hated myself but I could take my mind of the problems at home. 

Until then I had hated everything about me. The way I looked just didn’t seem right, my metallic green eyes weren’t the right color or an eye color at all really. My hair was too much like a girls, I was too short for my age I was only three feet nine inches at the time. I couldn’t do anything right, everything I tried to do ended in disaster. 

But when I was hunting it seemed like Here I am from Spirit Stallion of The Cimarron (a favorite movie of mine) was playing all around me. I was free out in the world of perfection. For the first time, I saw beauty. 

But then after getting outside for the first time, I sat down and cried for hours until Apollo found me. I hadn’t been sure why, Apollo thought it was because I was lost, but I knew exactly where I was. But now I knew that was the only time I had cried for something many other children my age cried for. My mother. 

That night I had felt her, she was so close, I could hear the music in my head. I realized now that the hunters had been only mere miles away and Apollo had felt it too so he came for me. 

After that I had been instructed never to go into the woods again, but I had tasted that freedom once and I wanted it again. So every chance I got (Which sadly wasn’t that often), I snuck out to hunt. 

 

When I returned to camp, Grace was sitting up stoking the fire, which was the exact color of her hair. 

“Are you okay?” I asked. She sighed and looked up at me. 

“Yes, I’m sorry about earlier, but my past is hard for me to speak about.” She apologized. I sat next to her and she flinched, reflexes I guess.

“That’s okay, I shouldn’t have pried into your business.” I said.

“It’s alright, I’m not used to anyone other than Lady Artemis caring about me.” She said sadly.

“The other hunters care about you a lot. Thalia and Emily were worried about you.” I offered. She gave a sad laugh.

“I know but I mean in a motherly, or sibling like way. I’m just not used to it, most people know I don’t like to talk about my past and leave it. I just don’t like to open up.” She said I nodded.

“That I understand, I have never had anyone I could talk to, no mother, no father, no siblings. Just Apollo.” I said sadly.

“You sound like you hate him as much as we do.” She laughed.

“Not really, I am on the same terms with him as my mother is and possibly a bit closer, but I am just not used to it. He never pried into my business unless I was somewhere I shouldn’t be and he found out (Which wasn’t often) or am hurt.” I explained.

“How do you do it? I sometimes cry out the pain when no one’s around, but I always talk to Lady Artemis.” She asked. I looked at her.

“I don’t know I only remember crying once. I am angry mostly. I hate myself, and the world. My very existence makes me angry.” I said.

“I could never do that. Why does your existence make you angry?” She asked and looked away. “I’m sorry; you don’t have to answer that. I shouldn’t have pried into your business.” 

“No it’s okay. I guess I hate myself because I know I am not part of the natural world. Well I am, but I wasn’t supposed to be here.” I said.

“That makes about as much sense as a potato farmer hating potatoes.” Grace said. 

“Okay well it’s like this. Everything in this forest has been born naturally, by the will of Artemis herself. But a skyscraper wasn’t, it was put there in the middle of nowhere by man to start a city. I am much the same way, I was not in the will of Artemis herself and in a way, I always knew I wasn’t put here the normal way. I can tell with things like that, I was put here because of anger, and hate, and as a result, I feel all of these things about myself.” I said.

“Oh I get it. Since you weren’t Lady Artemis’ choice, you feel like you should just disappear, go away and never come back but you hate yourself because you can’t.” She said I nodded.

“Now I’ve answered your question just answer one of mine. Where do you come from?” I asked. 

“Galway, Ireland.” She said. 

“Wow, I guess you must come from around either the potato famine or the mass Irish immigration in the early nineteen hundreds.” I said. 

“Yes, mass immigration.” She said and she got this far away look in her eyes, I had to wave my hand in front of her face to get her to look at me again.

“Have you ever seen the movie Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron?” I asked completely at random she shook her head. “I’ll show it to you some time, it’s my all-time favorite movie, because of what he did for his family. He went through all that to get back to his mom, and he was so free. It was something I never had.” I said.

“You’ve got it now. Shall we get back to bed?” She asked. I nodded and we climbed in our sleeping bags, soon I was asleep.

I was awoken the next day by Thalia, telling me that there was some cold venison waiting for me and to hurry up because we needed to get a move on.

Once we were on the move again, Grace told me that we had only a few miles until we reached camp so I decided to enjoy the rest of my freedom while I could. I watched the world pass by; it was all so beautiful and natural. The exact opposite of what I was. 

I felt Grace’s green eyes watching me and looked over at her, she pointed and I saw a sign that said plain as day Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, keeping hero’s safe (mostly) since 400 B.C.! I sighed.

“Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, Shamrock, where we’re going to lock you up and keep you from hurting yourself.” I grumbled and crossed the border with Thalia.


	2. Demi-god, Crazies and Centaurs OH MY!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The campers don't like Shamrock, and that's okay with him because Shamrock doesn't like the campers. HE doesn't know it but he's going to need them and they're going to need him, now if only he'd stop putting them in the hospital, maybe they could work together to at least capture the flag. But this is Shamrock, there's no such thing as "Get along with the campers."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I actually wrote this tale about a year ago, so everyday posts are not a common thing but once we get all caught up and are on part 4 of our tale then the posts will get less frequent, but that could take any where from a month to two months, as it really just depends on where I am seeing as I don't have I house yet, because actually having one when we arrive would be way to convenient for the military.
> 
> Just thought you should know that once we're caught up the updates won't be as frequent.

Chapter 2

Demi-gods, Crazies and Centaurs Oh MY!

Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery – JK Rowling 

Shamrock

 

We walked up to the big blue house in the center of the camp where I saw Lady Artemis standing talking to a group of campers. 

“Hi Mom.” I said and she turned and motioned for us to come closer I did and saw that there were like twenty other kids gathered. 

“Tell them who you are.” Grace ordered

“I’m Shamrock Clove son of Artemis.” I said quietly, I had always hated public speaking. 

“I’ve already explained us so Grace, why don’t you help him get settled in?” My Mother said and grace lead me off to a ring of cabins. We stood there for a few minutes in an awkward silence

“Go into the one you have a connection with.” She instructed. I went to the silver one, though when I passed the sea green cabin, I felt a small connection. 

“Grace?” I asked. 

“Yes Shamrock?” She asked wearily as she led me into the cabin.

“Is it possible to feel a connection to two of the cabins?” She looked at me a puzzled look on her face.

“Not unless one of your parents is a god or possibly a demi-god.” She eyed me. “Why?”

 

“Well I felt a strange connection with the sea green cabin. Like I wanted to go in it.” I explained and she got a trouble look on her face. “Grace.” 

“Oh, it’s probably nothing, Poseidon and Artemis are close so it’s possible that you feel the same closeness to the cabin.” She dismissed. “Here this one is your bed.” She gestured to the one in the corner it was carved with the same pattern as my bow with a shamrock in the center. 

“Did Artemis carve this?” I asked fingering the shamrock, it was beautiful. 

“Most likely. She carved almost everything, even the mantel piece.” I looked at her, slightly puzzled.

“Almost everything?” I asked. She sighed. 

“Not her bed, the one right next to yours.” She pointed to the bed under the window, it looked old, 2000 years old at least. It smelled of the sea and a musky smell I associated with dogs. 

“Who-“ I started.

“Shamrock,” She interrupted. “it’s really complicated and she’ll explain it to you when she’s ready, but it’s not my place to explain. I’m sorry.” She said sitting on my bed and putting a hand on my shoulder.

“It’s okay I just wanted to know.” I shrugged it off, it was no big deal, I noticed she had a sad look in her Irish green eyes. “You don’t need to explain.” 

“Thanks,” She smiled at me “now I think Lady Artemis wants to talk to you.” She got up, just then Mom came in.

“Mother.” I greeted, she smiled and sat next to me.

“I carved it, do you like it?” She asked I nodded. “Now I sense you have a question to ask me.” I sighed. 

“Who carved your bed, and how old is it?” I asked. 

“It’s from Ancient Greece, Crete to be exact. It was Orion’s, he carved and after I-I killed hi I-I t-took it.” She said looking at her feet and tear rolling down her cheek.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” I said she wiped the tear away. Honestly I would have comforted her but I was still fairly uncomfortable with the whole the-virgin-goddess-is-my-mom thing.

“No it’s okay I see him for one night every hundred years, the last time was right before you were born. Though it will pain me forever to talk about it I have tried and failed to get Hades bring him back to life.” She said sadly, then a horn sounded. “Lunch.” She said and I looked at my watch, it really was already noon. What time did I wake up?

WE went to lunch where I found the other hunters sitting at the Artemis table most of the other campers stopped eating as I walked in but I didn’t care. They gave me a wide berth when I came in. I sat next to Thalia, the only one who didn’t seem to flinch or roll her eyes at me.

“Girls.” I said.

“Shamrock.” They greeted in return. I rolled my eyes and went to my lunch, a cheese sandwich (An old favorite) Thalia tapped my shoulder.

“Sham,” She whispered using my nickname, “Cut them some slack they’re trying to be nice.”

“Alright fine, but just so you know Grace tried and she did an OK job but I wouldn’t say she was nice. I think she was more on the terms of polite.” I said, Thalia got a puzzled look on her face, like she couldn’t understand what I was saying. “You know the annoying red head?” The blonde (Can’t remember her name)sitting across from me kicked me underneath the table I guessed she and Grace were friends.

“I know who Grace is, but she hates men, all of them. She is one of the most anti-guy fighters we have.” Thalia said frowning. I looked down the table, Grace was talking to a brown haired girl, who was seated next to my mother. 

“Well it didn’t seem like she hates me. She’s just really touchy about the whole past thing, which I can get, seeing as I didn’t have a great past at all.” I said. Thalia coughed in a way that made it obvious she was trying not to laugh. I frowned at her this is not something I would joke about.

“Um touchy about the past is an understatment, none of us know more than that she’s from Galway, Ireland but that’s the most we can get out of her without being given the cold shoulder.” Thalia said. 

“So I didn’t find out anything significant with my question?” I asked, sighing, I had thought we were becoming friends.  
Think again! My instincts screamed

“Yeah, don’t let it bother you, she has a hard life. I’m shocked you got even that out of her. I thought I would have to explain everything to you. Oh great.” She growled looking at entrance to the dining pavilion where a small girl was coming in. Not so strange, if you disregard the fact that she’s green. 

“What is that?” I asked as the girl made her way over to Mother.

“Spruce, a tree nymph,” Thalia explained “she’s like two hundred but trees age slower then humans, so she’s like a nine year old.” The girl came up to my mom and gave her a circlet of roses.

“Is she on friendly terms with my mother?” I asked, Thalia gave a sigh.

“Yes all the nature spirits are. Nymphs, Satyrs and anything else that could remotely have to do with nature.” Thalia grumbled, I got the feeling she had something to hold against these nature spirits. 

“I get the impression you don’t like that.” I said slowly. She looked at me.

“It’s not that, it’s the satyrs, they’re all in love with her and they keep bugging about her.” She paused “I will kill Grover for that by the way.” 

“Oh,” I said, ignoring the fact that I didn’t know who Grover was, and looked at the blonde. “Who are you?”

“Sofia, please just leave me alone.” She whimpered looking quite terrified of me. 

“She has, issues with guys.” Thalia whispered I looked at her but it wasn’t my business.

Later that night in the cabin, the girls seemed nervous around me and I couldn’t help but wonder why. It was only when I realized y mother would be sleeping in the same room with us did I get it. How were we supposed to do this, wait for her to fall asleep, or go to sleep first? 

Mother took out an old lyre and sat on her bed, beckoning for and big black dog to come and sit, and she began to play. It took me a minute to figure out why she was playing Here I am, but then I remembered something Apollo had told me. Artemis’ lyre sounded different to everyone, it was what they need to here, then and there. 

I began to drift asleep but not before I heard my mother whisper something, it sounded like;

“Sleep my child.” And sleep I did, until the dream came.   
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
In the dream I was standing in the middle of a forest. I could hear screams far away, and see a huge black palace, and three islands in the middle of a nearby lake. I took a wild guess that I was in the Elysium in the underworld. I heard some one coming and ducked behind a tree instinctively. A man passed by, he was tall (at least six feet) had shaggy black hair, green eyes and wore a hunters tunic. He carried a silver bow across his back and was whistling happily. 

“Off to see the lady Orion?” A voice said, it was Hades.

“Yes Lord Hades, you remember out agreement. I haven’t seen her since 1896.” Orion said, this must have been just before I was born. 

“Very well, but first I need a favor.” Hades said and Orion looked at him. 

“What tis it lord?” He asked. Hades began to pace. 

“I need something for Apollo he requested a sample of your essence, may I?” I could tell he was greatly troubled by this as this was an unusual request.

“Of course.” Orion pulled out a small vial in a Ziploc Bag from his satchel filled with a shimmery green liquid.

“You carry your own essence around in a Ziploc baggy?” Hades asked, raising a dark eyebrow.

“So that’s what those things are! Yes I do. Now may I go?” Orion asked. Hades nodded, Orion was gone and with him the dream…  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke with a start and looked around me. The hunters were getting ready to leave at, I checked my watch 4;30 in the morning. They must be seriously angry.

“Mother, where are we going?” I asked looking over at Grace, her red hair tied up in pony tail. Mother looked at me and smiled. 

“The huntresses and I are going hunting, we won’t be staying at Camp Half-Blood. You on the other hand, need to remain here until the council calls.” She said I nodded. 

“How will I know if the council calls?” I asked. 

“I can send someone if you wish.” She sighed. “Grace and Thalia will come a get you if your presence is requested.” 

I could tell Grace was not happy about it. I guessed her few minutes of niceness was over because of the way she grimaced when mother said her name. But she nodded and told her she would come. 

Soon though the huntresses had to leave, and I was left alone. It was still early but I was up so I decided to go hunting . I dressed quickly and grabbed my bow, which mother had hung over the mantel piece. As I was walking by Grace’s bed, I noticed something laying on it. It was a small picture frame. 

The photo graph in the frame was of Grace and, I counted, 13 other children. I saw that even though the photo was in Black and white, every one of them had the same red hair. They all looked exactly like Grace. She was holding an infant child in one arm and the other had the hand of a little girl. They had their backs to a small house and were smiling. Two of the little girls were looking back at Grace as if asking questions. I turned to photo over and on the back of the frame. It said June 18, 1912. 

“Wow that is one old picture,” I said to myself and then went out side. No one was up and I was obviously alone. It was a cold crisp November morning and I could still see the stars, I decided to find somewhere I could look at the them. 

I walked around the camp for a few minutes before I found a dock with a perfect view of Orion. I wondered what he was doing. Did he still carry around his essence in a Ziploc? Was he missing My mother? Did he know my father? Did he know I was Lady Artemis’ kid? Mostly I wanted to know how he felt about my mother. Did he love her so much that he was willing to die a thousand painful deaths in order to save her? 

I heard a giggle. I looked around and saw the little nymph, Spruce. She noticed me and ran off blushing bright green. It was awkward to make a girl blush, for fourteen years I had lived around only Apollo. I attended and online school and had never made a friend, or for that matter talked to any girls that weren’t the ones Apollo brought home.

I was, what you would call, socially awkward and kind of unpredictable, the only campers I had seen had stared at me for the whole lunch period. I didn’t know if   
this happened all the time in school or if it was just here. 

I wasn’t exactly looking forward to breakfast but was so hungry that, when the horn blew, I went anyway. I sacrificed some food to my mother and went to sit down. On the table was a note.   
Shamrock,   
I hope you don’t feel uncomfortable around the camp like we do, that’s why we didn’t stay longer, if you want to change something please just ask Chiron (The centaur). He can help you with any problems. I’ll send someone if I sense danger.   
– Artemis.

I reread the note twice and decided that I would just sit here and eat, but in doing that I got looked at a lot more and it was a bit unnerving, so I ate as quickly as I could. Before I could escape the centaur came up to me.

“So you are Shamrock Clover, son of Artemis the virgin goddess.” He said looking down at me. I looked at him. 

“Yes sir and you are Chiron, trainer of Hero’s.” I said, he seemed mildly surprised that I knew him but shook that off and handed me a sheet of paper. 

“This is your schedule, should you skip any of these classes more than twice, I will be forced to punish you.” He said sternly, like he was reading my mind. I read over the schedule and nodded, I would skip a few times anyway. 

“Sir, I wish to request new sleeping arrangements, I would feel empty inside my cabin, may I sleep in the forest?” He raised and eyebrow.

“Are you sure?” He asked.

“Yes sir.” I nodded.

“Very well you may, but make sure to stick to the trees, the woods is full of monsters and it would be horrible if anyone got hurt.” He said I –gave him a disbelieving look.

“You really doubt that I can take care of my self?” I asked he chuckled which made me angrier.

“No of course not. I’m only saying that it’s dangerous and to be careful.” HE said I just turned on my heal and walked off. He couldn’t control everyone and it was high time someone showed him that. I took it upon my self to do that.

I showed up to the first class, sword fighting with the Poseidon and Hades’ cabins. That made a grand total of three opponents. Percy, Nico (Who just glared and said he wouldn’t fight me.) and Percy’s little sister Aqua. Aqua took me on, she wasn’t afraid of getting beaten. At first I had no problem with fighting her. It was when the whole camp showed up to watch. that ticked me off. I knew what they were doing, assessing me in battle. When I beat her and started to walk away, she grabbed my arm.

“Good job, I look forward to fighting you again sometime.” She said I just turned and walked off leaving her looking hurt.

Archery; Mayhem, The Apollo cabin was not nice. Will Solace “missed” the target and just happened to lodge an arrow in my leg. I ripped it out poured nectar in it, and stood up. I aimed and fired, hitting the target dead center dead center with such velocity it pierced the next two targets. The whole camp was once again watching. I sighed and moved on to rock climbing.

I scaled the wall in two minutes and leapt off the top, doing three flips in the air and landing in a squat with one hand on the ground. I stood up and walked away. 

“You did really well.” One girl said blushing, I had never made a girl blush and I didn’t like it. So I shrugged and walked away. The rest of my day went in much the same way and I didn’t even go to dinner, I just went straight to the forest and fell asleep under a tree. 

I was awakened at about midnight, maybe later by someone standing over me, I could see that it was Percy and he was mad. I sat up.

“What?” I snapped.

“Dude, not cool okay? You can be mean to me but not to Aqua. She was just trying to make you feel welcome, and I went through the same thing and the Hermes campers helped me with it.” He said.

“Look I don’t have friends, okay? I just have me! I’ve always just had me. You have parents, my dad I dead, my mother is never around! I was kept inside my whole life and only had Apollo!” I yelled. 

“You have an opportunity to make friends here and acting like you are doesn’t make them. You have to open up to someone!”

“No I don’t, I didn’t for fourteen years and I can do it for longer.” I said and walked away. I was furious, he may have been right that I did need to open up and I should find someone, but that didn’t mean I had to. He could have been polite but he decided to be rude about it instead. 

I guess now that I think about it I should have been nicer to his sister, but things worked out in the end. I know I was being a brat but it was two in the morning, and I was sick of being woken up, all the time. I had been woken up by Spruce at least four times and I had been stared at all day long. 

I felt kind of like a zoo animal who spent all day being studied. The Athena kids had tried to conduct an experiment on how long I could stay in the forest. I didn’t say anything but as far as I know their counselor, Annabel? Annie? Anna? Oh never mind but she was still out there on the boarder looking for me. 

I decided to try and run for it but then I got caught by the night patrol and ended up being shoved back into the forest. 

By Friday I had enough of the stares and was just sitting back and not listening to Annabeth (I finally learned her name) reread the plan, I was devising my own. I had decided just to go to get the flag myself. 

Once the game started I immediately left my post and headed out to find the flag. It was in a dark clearing, only Aqua and Nico were guarding the flag. Aqua would be easy if I could count on her ADHD to keep her distracted long enough, but Nico was a problem. Not only was this his element, but he wasn’t ADHD and if he was it wasn’t as bad. I ran through the clearing fast enough not to get caught but slow enough that Aqua could see me.

Aqua fallowed me into the woods and after getting about a quarter of a mile away I doubled back, Aqua though kept going. Good, she was out of the way. Next I just had Nico.

He was expecting me though, he had summoned a dozen undead warriors and as soon as I entered the clearing, they surrounded me and I stopped dead.

“Thought you could out smart me in shadows?” He asked. I laughed and let lose a feral howl.

“Thought you could outsmart me in the forest?” I responded once again he laughed, cold, clear and high. 

“Mommy’s little helpers huh?” He asked I chuckled, and a dozen silver wolves emerged from the woods. 

“Nope, sic um’ girls.” I said and the wolves launched themselves at the zombies. I drew my sword. “How about it Nico? You and me head on. Last man standing gets the flag?” I asked flicking my bangs for dramatic effect. 

“Sure.” He said with an absolutely evil grin and I launched at him. 

I had to give Nico some credit, he was wicked good with that sword, I could just barely match him move for move. His fighting style was new to me and mine was new to him. Luckily I learned fast. 

I also learned that he had taken me word for word, he really wanted to kill me. This thought didn’t frighten me at all, in fact I found it somewhat peaceful. 

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing? You could kill me!” I said appalled more at the thought that he didn’t care then that he wanted to kill me. 

“I know. I hate you!” HE screamed, this puzzled me. I had never spoken to him, I had never done anything to harm him. 

“What?” I asked. 

“ I hate you because of your mother!” He screamed. This puzzled me even further. What did he have against my mother and why was he going to take it all out on me.

“Then why do you hate her?” I grunted as our swords met once again. 

“Because, she took my sister from me! She was killed because of your mother!” He snarled, this alone made me stop. Nico got a swipe at my arm and a good size cut was along it, it was bleeding a lot. As soon as he realized I wasn’t going to fight he paused, we had drawn a good size crowd now and they were all looking at me. I turned and ran back to my cabin…

 

The cabin was colder than last time, having been a week since anyone had slept here, I felt a tear roll down my cheek. I sat down on the bed. 

MY mother hadn’t intentionally killed Nico’s sister had she? Of course not, that was ridiculous! She loved innocent young girls who hated guys. Another tear fell down my face. I realized now more than ever I wanted her here. 

“M-Mother, did you really kill her?” I asked to the empty room as though expecting it to answer. When it didn’t I went over to my bag and pulled out the picture of Grace’s family and of the Hunters. I looked at the one of the hunters of Artemis. It was dated in December of 2007. After the Hunters had won capture the flag, there was a girl there who looked a lot like Nico. 

“Where did you get that?” A girls voice asked from behind me. I wheeled around and saw Thalia and Grace standing in the door way.

“Oh you left them.” I said wiping away the tears and holding them out to Grace. She took them and set them down. “Why are you here?” 

“Oh the council is tomorrow, Lady Artemis sent us.” Thalia explained. “But judging by the scene you just caused out there I would say she’ll be here now.” Just then mother ran in a wild look in her eyes.

“Are you alright?” She asked me I nodded. “ I’m so sorry, I should have known you would hate this place, I should have let you travel with us.” She hugged me tightly and I went limp. I was safe. All other thoughts went blank and I collapsed into her small form. She wasn’t much bigger than me and could have been my sister, but that didn’t really matter. I heard her tell the hunters to go and find Chiron. “What on earth did Nico do to you?” 

“I-It wasn’t Nico. In fact I probably like the way he treated me best. The others are the problem, I’m not an experiment , well I kind of am but that’s beside the point, I have feelings too. Treating me like some lethal weapon isn’t going to do anything.” I said sitting up.

“I warned them.” She mumbled.

“The Aphrodite cabin was worst. They kept trying to seduce me,” I shuddered. “And when that didn’t work they got mad and constantly provoked me. I put one of them in the infirmary before Chiron found out.” 

“I’ll talk with Aphrodite, but now let’s wait on grace and Thalia.” She said and as if they were waiting on cue they walked in behind Chiron. 

“Shamrock! What is the meaning of this. The campers have been nothing but nice_” I cut him off.

“Nice?” NICE! You call treating me like a bomb that could blow up any second nice?! You really are off your rocker Centaur! If that’s nice then what is cruel? This is a camp for Crazies which, I’ll have you know just because my ADHD is the worse than all of them put together, doesn’t make me one of them.” I yelled. 

“Now Shamrock , they were nice, and even if they weren’t, it’s no reason to pick a fight with Nico.” Chiron said civilly, this guy really was crazy and you could tell he   
had been raising teenagers for a long time.

“I didn’t pick that fight with Nico, he charged me!” I screamed “but you know not being afraid to take me on with a dozen of my mothers wolves, in the forest, on a full moon would make him my favorite except for the flaw that he hates my mother but I think we could work around that!” 

“Now, now no need to make excuses.” Chiron said, he really didn’t get it did he? 

“Never mind.” I growled and sat down. 

“Chiron he makes a point I saw the whole thing.” Grace piped up. “Just looking at the campers today made me sick, the way they treat him is like they treat one of us. Which –no offense sir- is pretty bad.” 

“Yeah Chiron, Nico hates us and all but I would have to say he was the kindest to Sham. HE needs a little credit in this.” Thalia said. I looked up at her and Grace. They were defending me? 

“Chiron we can sort this out, the campers have been treating him too much like one of us. Glaring or, in the Athena camper’s case, asking to experiment on him. I agree that he could be nicer but I also think that the campers could have given him a fair chance.” Mother said. 

“Aqua was nice… ish” I said remembering the first day and wincing I could be nicer though and when I got back from Olympus I was going to be.

“Shamrock you start being nicer to everyone else and they can start being nicer to you.” Chiron said I decided that instead of pointing out that they didn’t want to be nicer to me I should just agree.

“Yes sir.” I said he smiled.

“Now then, I’ll go talk to the campers.” He said and strolled out, the other huntresses were waiting right outside and ran in. 

“Are you okay?” The one named Emily asked. I nodded.

“Girls let’s all get ready for bed, it’s already ten o’clock and we have to be up at sunrise.” Mom said and within thirty minutes everyone was asleep. Everyone except me. I looked out the window. The full moon was bright and beautiful. I sat there just looking at it for a while. 

“Shamrock are you okay?” My Mother said from the bunk at the foot of mine.

“Yes, I thought you were asleep.” I said. She laughed quietly.

“I’m a goddess, we don’t have to sleep.” She said. “But you do , go to sleep you have a long day tomorrow.” She pulled out a set of reed pipes and began to play, to me it sounded like the song Apollo used to play on the lyre when I was little until I fell asleep. I think he called it ‘Shamrock Lullaby.’ I was soon asleep.

I woke the next day to Thalia trying to wake me. None of the others were awake but I guess that was because it was 4:30 in the morning. 

“Morning. Wake Grace up for me, I have to shower.” Thalia said and ran off.

“Good morning to you too.” I mumbled and still half asleep I trudged over to Grace’s bed. I guess Grace was alight sleeper because it didn’t take long for her to wake up.

“Morning Shamrock.” She chirped and bounced out of bed, and off to shower. I guess she was also a morning person because it should be illegal to be that happy in this early in the morning. 

I learned Thalia was not a morning person the hard way. They had there own kitchen in the Artemis cabin, mom had said it was for when they had to get up and leave early, well Thalia came in and made a cup of coffee. I poured my self some and she growled Grace then came by and said.

“Wait until Thalia is done because usually you come to regret it if you don’t” She said. Noticing that they were out of the shower I went to take one. When I came   
back out Thalia was in a better mood. Better meaning she had drank five cups of coffee. 

“Okay is there some kind of Huntress dress code I don’t know about? Because you are always dressed the same in silver tops, jeans, tennis shoes and in winter silver jackets. Your hair is always braided and you all make the bed in exactly the same way.” I said. Grace looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“No, it’s just easier to dress like this for camp. When we hunt we wear black hunting tunics.” Thalia said.

“Besides these are adorable!” Grace gushed.

“Did she get into the coffee?” I asked because Grace wasn’t ADHD, but she sure acted like it.

“Yep. Just ignore pretty much anything she says.” Thalia said “That’s what I do.” I looked over at Grace who was drawing on her arm in sharpie. Thalia grabbed her and we walked out of the cabin.

The morning was cool and crisp, it was still dark out as we went to the stables. I picked out a golden pagasi and put Grace in front of me. 

“I’ll take her, I don’t want her to get giddy and fall off.” I said. Thalia nodded. According to Thalia, Grace had so little caffeine in her whole life that it made her really crazy when she did get it. Almost like the time they gave me Valium at the dentist and I… never mind.

“It’s probably good she won’t remember this in an hour.” Thalia said. I looked at her. 

“Why wouldn’t she remember this?” I asked she looked at me.

“Caffeine acts like a mind wipe for the period of time, Grace was under caffeine influence.” Thalia said. I looked at Grace who was giggling like a maniac. She was drawing circles on the Pegasus. We kicked off and she lurched. Thalia’s Pagasi (Well she said it was her cousins), Blackjack was eying Grace with a ‘who is this maniac on my friend’ kind of look. Thalia leaned against him, looking green and closed her eyes.

“You okay?” I asked she turned her head and looked at me, if you can call it looking when her eyes are closed.

“So high.” She murmured so quietly that I could barely hear her. 

“You’re afraid of heights? But your dad is Zeus.” I said she sighed and opened her eyes enough to roll them.

“I didn’t say it made sense, I just said I was.” She said louder this time. I glanced and Grace who was petting the ‘Pretty Horsey.’ I decided not to tell her the ‘Pretty Horsey’ was a guy. 

“Close your eyes and relax, I can lead.” I said she murmured something but fallowed my instructions. It only took us about a half an hour to get to Olympus and by then it was dawn, or it would have been if it wasn’t so cloudy. I felt sad, not because I was most likely going to die, but because my beloved night was over. 

We landed in front of the throne room, Thalia told me to go ahead, she was going to take grace to my mother’s place. I looked ahead and entered the throne room of the gods…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sitting through this monster of a tale and feel free to leave comments in the comments box.


	3. I Escape Death By a Hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shamrock is in the throne room of the gods, watching them vote on his own life. Which isn't the first time his life has been in the balance... but after the trouble on the way home he deems it the first time he's escaped death twice in less the three hours.

Chapter 3

I Escape Death By A Hair

Life does not put things in front of you that you are not able to handle – Unknown

When I entered the throne room the gods were bickering (big shocker) and they were giants. I looked at all of them. They froze, except my mother and Apollo smiled down at me.

“Mother, Uncle. Everyone else.” I said. I looked around the room, everyone was here. Aphrodite was seated next to Ares and they both studied me carefully. Hephaestus, Dionysus, and Hades looked like they could care less what happened to me. The rest looked genuinely interested in what was about to happen. 

“So Artemis, this is your boy.” Poseidon said. 

“Yes uncle this is Shamrock.” Mother said proudly. 

“I hear you picked a fight with death breaths kid, and my own.” 

“Yes uncle I am truly sorry that I picked a fight with Aqua she seems nice enough I was just rude.” I apologized.

“You remind me of someone Shamrock.” Poseidon said.

“Who?” I asked. All he did was smile and mother turned away for a moment like she was about to cry. 

“Don’t fret young Artemis I like him enough to vote in his favor.” Poseidon said to Lord Zeus. Then I remembered he was Orion’s father and was close to my mother.

“Wait brother,” Zeus said. “we have to hear his case first.” 

“Very well, Shamrock tell us your tale.” Poseidon told me. So I began to recount everything that had happened over the last week, from being attacked to landing on Olympus. 

“Thank you now let us vote, Artemis, Aphrodite, you may not vote, neither shall I.” Zeus said. “Brothers.”

“Kill him.” Hades said lazily.

“I say we let him live, he has done nothing wrong.” Poseidon said. I saw my mother relax a bit, I imagined Poseidon’s vote meant something to her. 

“He is rather adorable,” Hera said. “But look at the problems he’s caused our family, I say he dies.” 

“Just because you didn’t hit it off with Annabeth, doesn’t mean I can’t vote in you favor. I say he lives.” Was Athena’s say, going down the line , I turned to lord Ares.

“Kill him painfully.” He said. I gulped.

“Go for it why should I care?” Hephaestus shrugged and went back to tinkering with an automaton the size of me.

“I don’t care, let him live, kill him, whatever you do it doesn’t concern me, if we’re lucky I can watch Nico kill him.” Dionysus said.

“Oh let him live.” Hestia said kindly before returning to her fire.

“Apollo your vote is about to decide whether he lives or dies.” Zeus said. “Consider this very carefully.” 

“What is there to consider, I watched him grow up and become like his mother in so many ways.” Apollo smiled at me his eyes twinkling like they had when I was younger and he would praise me. “He has a rebellious streak like his mom, he will fight for what he believes in, and for those he loves. To watch him die would be like watching Artemis die. Allow him to live.” 

“Very well Shamrock you may live. Now council dismissed.” Zeus said. As soon as he said that, My mother, Poseidon and Apollo, morphed down to my size and came up to me. 

“Lord Poseidon why did you vote in my favor?” I asked. He smiled and looked down at me, even in human form Poseidon was the tallest of the gods, six and a half feet at least.

“There was only one other time I have seen my niece fight for something that hard and it didn’t end well. I didn’t want to see her cut up for another thousand years. Besides like I said, you remind me of someone.” He said ruffling my hair.

“Once again I ask, who do I remind you of?” I said, flattening my hair, all he would do is smile.

“Come now Shamrock, let us go to my temple, where the hunters wait for us.” Mother said and led me away. 

The temple looked much like Apollo’s house except it was bigger and silver, not gold. We went in and I was greeted by a chorus of, “He’s Alive!” 

Thalia gave me a hug. “You made it past my dad!” She said I gave a feeble grin and Grace came up to me.

“How did I get here?” She asked.

“We took you on the Pegasi.” I said. 

“Thank you and don’t let me have any coffee. Please.” She walked away. The other hunters just observed me like they were wondering why I wasn’t a pile of dust on   
the floor. Mother lead me into a spare bedroom, told me to shower, change into the hunting tunics in the closet.

The room was small and had only a bed in one corner, a night stand next to that and a wardrobe in the other. A small door led off to the bathroom and two hooks for my bow. It was almost eerie how simple the room was, like it had never been used. If it had it must have been years. 

After I finished showering, I dressed and sat on the bed looking out the window. It was now noon and the sun was high, I was glad I only had a few hours until nightfall. I got up when something caught my eye. It was a hair comb, very old, and made of deer antlers. 

“Hey mom.” I called as I walked out to the living room. Grace looked up at me.

“Oh she had a few details to smooth out with Chiron, can I help you?” Thalia asked. I nodded. 

“Is this anyone’s?” I asked holding up the hair comb. The hunters turned away as though it hurt them to look at the comb. “No?”

“No it isn’t.” Thalia said tears wiled up in her blue eyes. I looked at it again and saw that in faded silver lettering was Zoe Nightshade.

“Oh.” I said and set the Comb on the table. The hunters good mood had been swiped away by looking at this comb. Grace had her eyes on the ground, Sofia and a few others were staring mindlessly into their hot-chocolate mugs, Thalia had a broken look on her face, Emily was crying openly and, the rest of the hunters were watching me with sad expressions on their faces.

“Come with me.” Thalia said. The other hunters looked up. “HE has a right to know what happened to her, and if you won’t tell him I will.” 

She lead me into the kitchen and pointed to the chair. I got the message and sat, she leapt onto the counter and pulled out another mug and made more Hot Chocolate. She handed this to me and sat on the counter.

“Okay what do you want to know?” She asked. I could tell from her tone of voice that, though it hurt her to talk about Zoё, she thought of it more as something to honor then to hide and spend the day crying about. 

“How did you meet her?” I started, and she sighed.

“I’m going to start with the second meeting as the first one is difficult for me to talk about. Not because of her, but because of other figures of my past. Is that okay?” I nodded, she ran one hand through her short black hair. “Okay then, it was about a year and a half before the titan war. Percy, Annabeth, Grover and I were going to rescue Nico and Bianca DiAngelo.” 

“Nico’s sister who died?” 

“Yes, but any way we had some trouble with a manticore, the hunters sensed us in the area and came to help. We didn’t kill the manticore though, it jumped off a cliff with Annabeth.” 

“But she’s still alive,” I paused. “wait this is the same Annabeth right?” I asked.

“Yes now shut up and listen! Okay so Zoё was the one who told us she was dead and I kind of got really mad at her and- never mind, but Lady Artemis had some   
business to tend to alone so Apollo took Percy, Grover, Nico, and the Hunters. Bianca had joined them by then. Now I hated Zoё with a burning fiery Passion of Hate due to a previous meeting, then Lady Artemis was kidnapped. We had to work together and in her final hour, we were sisters. She was killed by her father, the Titan Atlas.” Thalia finished sadly. I could now hear the other hunters crying in the living room.

“Who was she closest to?” I asked.

“Grace, Emily, and of course Lady Artemis.” Thalia said. This would explain a lot. Why Grace and Emily refused to talk about her, why Emily was crying, and why Grace seemed ready to cry when I brought out the comb.

“Oh.” I said softly and went back out to the living room. Artemis was there now comforting them. she was also on the verge of tears. 

“Shamrock, I take it Thalia has told you everything?” She asked. I nodded and Lady Artemis smiled at Thalia. “Good, that saves us some time. You need to head back to camp, with the hunters.”

“But mom,” I protested (it was still weird to call her mom.) “I hate it there!” 

“I know but it’s just for a few days, Poseidon caused and earthquake in Volterra, Italy and we are having trouble with some… friends there. I have to go and sort things out.” 

“Okay mother.” I mumbled. The huntresses were fast packers and we were about half way to camp, near a small water fall, when it happened.

Nine hikers came out of the woods, normal enough. Then the smell hit me, it was unnatural like something that should be dead but isn’t, not normal. Their eyes glowed red, again not normal. 

“So you are Artemis’ little helpers.” The guy in front said he had a very think accent, Italian I think. His red eyes were bright and I swear he should have been out of breath from coming up the hill on the other side, but he was unfazed. 

Before I could answer my sense went blank; sight, sound, feeling, sense of smell, and as far as I knew, taste was gone too. It wasn’t natural and instead of running I simply stood, or I think I did, it was weird. I was sure that if the hunters could get to me they would, if not to protect me to drag me with them. 

It felt like hours, but it was really only minutes, until my senses came back. I was alone, the hunters were gone. The only sign of them that remained was Grace’s backpack. I opened it and found a note. 

 

If you want your hunters back listen carefully. We heard this at the camp by the red head girl we took.

 

Child of Nature, daughter of the Sea  
Come west with the child of death  
Go to the girl born from her mother’s death  
The Nature children must go on alone   
The one called Alice awaits you in Rome  
Your fate is sealed in the place called Volterra  
Avoid the one they call Cauis   
Come rescue your friends and me.   
Not much of a rhyme scheme , but we have taken the ones you call friends.  
\- The Volturi

 

I shoved the note in my pocket and ran back to camp. It was dead. I couldn’t find anyone. I checked everywhere when I finally went to the dining hall I found Aqua and Nico sitting there. 

“Hey did Nine people, pale, red eyes ,fangs come through here?” I asked.

“Yes but there were twenty of them.” Nico said coldly. “Then our senses went dark and when we got them back everyone was gone.” 

“Look I’m really sorry about before, both of you, but we have a prophecy to fulfill.” I showed Nico the note and his eyes widened.

“Shamrock, it’s okay I went through the same thing when I first arrived, everyone was like ‘Poseidon broke the river styx AGAIN!’” Aqua said and then she saw the note and her eyes bugged out. “Sweet mother Rhea! Is this blood?” I glanced at the note again, I hadn’t paid much attention to what it was before, but now I saw it was.

“We don’t have much choice but to go.” I said.

“Alright fine, we can have a temporary truce just to save them, but I’m not going for you or your friends, I’m going for Bianca.” Nico said glaring at me. 

“Okay. Let’s pack and go.” I said and we separated to our cabins to pack.

I grabbed my back pack and folded a spare tunic, I brought along my bow and arrows, but they could hide as I had to summon them, by snapping my fingers first. I also grabbed Thalia’s bracelet, which I had found on the forest floor, Grace’s picture and a smaller tunic; just because it felt right to me. I tossed in some nectar, ambrosia, and a few drachmas on top.

I closed the bag, I raced out to meet the others, just Aqua was there with her brothers blue back pack. She had changed into a purple shirt with odd writing on it and jeans with holes. 

“The shirt is my brothers, don’t ask where he got it, but it just feels right to bring it along.” She said before I could ask. I nodded, it was like how it had felt right to bring a smaller tunic along. Nico walked out with a black backpack and a pen. He tossed Aqua the pen.

“Your brother let me barrow this for a few days, I’ll go grab my sword from the forge.” HE said. I looked over at Aqua.

“Your brother let him barrow a pen?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Nope.” She said and pulled the cap off. The pen elongated into a full blown sword, Anaklousmos was written on the side.

“Nice.” I said. She nodded. 

“HE’s had this since he was my age.” Aqua said. “I’m twelve by the way not elven.”

“Why do they think you’re eleven?” I asked.

“I’m tiny for my age.” 

“SO am I. I’ve been called ten.” 

“Ouch.” Was what Aqua had to say on that subject. Nico came back strapping a sword made of Stragyion iron to his back.

“Off we go.” He grumbled pulling his hood up. I nodded and led them to the pegasi stables. The ones we had taken earlier were back and Aqua jumped on Blackjack. Nico choose a plain brown one he called Killer (It’s stall said Princess though) and I took the white one, Mestoso. 

“Only as far and grand central.” I told the pegasi. The whinnied, I hoped that was a good thing, and took off. Nico flattened himself against the back of the pegasi . Aqua remained sitting though.

“Nico are you afraid of heights?” I asked wondering if he was like Thalia.

“Not heights but uncle Zeus.” He mumbled. I glanced at Aqua who shrugged a wordless ‘Hey were big three don’t ask.’ I yawned, only then realizing it was noon and I had been up since four in the morning.

“Get some sleep Shamrock, I’ll wake you when we get there.” Aqua yelled over the wind. I sighed and leaned against the neck of the Pegasus. 

I dreamed I was in a dungeon, it was like most dungeons, dark, dreary, and creepy. But it was also different. It had different ways of torcher. It looked like the hunters were all being forced to relive a bad memory. Grace was flat out screaming in terror. Emily was rocking back and forth mumbling ‘bad kitty, bad big scary yellow kitty.’ But Thalia was in the worst condition. She was repeatedly screaming for someone called Luke. 

I looked around, Percy was being levitated in the air outside the dungeon, Annabeth was being forced to relive every bad thing that had happened to her. There was worse going on, far worse. 

The red eyed guy came up, he was the leader from earlier. 

“Hello Shamrock, you see you’re little friends are going to die here. You should come for them, now I’m thinking it’s time to…” He began to walk slowly towards me. “WAKE UP!” He screamed lunging. 

I fell off the pegasi screaming. Aqua hopped off hers and helped me up. I looked around, grand central station. 

“Are you okay?” Aqua asked looking a bit worried.

“Fine,” I stood up and dusted myself off. “now let’s go.” 

“Um Sham, in a few moments we won’t be fine.” Nico hissed. “I can feel something dead coming and it’s coming fast.” Then another red eyed person, this one a girl, broke out of the crowd. 

“Crap. Okay we have to rip her to bits, literally.” I said. 

“What!” Aqua whisper yelled.

“He’s right, rip it to bits and burn the pieces.” Nico mumbled. I looked at him and we took a silent oath. That if we had a choice, Aqua would be kept safe. We both knew this wasn’t for us, it was for Percy. The most I could do was protect his sister. She was still too young to be on this kind of quest, I was fifteen (Almost) Nico had to be at least 15, if not older.

The thing saw us and lunged, with inhuman speed, toward Aqua. I leapt onto it’s back and Nico slashed at it with his sword. Aqua Took a moment to uncap riptide, and soon we were ripping and hacking. 

“Step back.” Nico ordered and pulled a match out of his pocket. He struck it against the sidewalk, then he promptly dropped it on the vampire. It hissed (Literally) and screeched before being reduced to a pile of ashes. 

“Burn.” Aqua said and started laughing, honestly I tried not to but in the end I was right there with her, laughing my head off at a corny joke. That’s just something we did though, we were on a quest to rescue our friends and we were so nervous we would laugh at just about anything. 

Nico rolled his eyes, he was the only one unfazed by this. We walked into Grand Central Station still smiling about our joke, but once we caught sight of the travel board we stopped. Nico and Aqua couldn’t read it so it was up to me. 

“Excuse me,” I said to the desk clerk, he looked at me. I must have looked pretty weird a kid in a hunting tunic, looking like he lived in the woods, trying to order a train ticket. 

“Yes sir?” He asked.

“I need three train tickets as far west as this can get me.” I said and handed him all the cash we had. 

“Okay three tickets to St, Louis. Here you go.” HE said and handed me the tickets. I walked back to Nico and Aqua.

“Shamrock you need to change into something more, normal. Here I brought this.” Aqua pulled out some jeans and a t-shirt of Percy’s. I changed in the bathroom and came back out. I was surprised that the jeans fit.

“Hey who’s are these they fit me.” I said. 

Aqua giggled. “My mortal brothers, he’s elven.” Even Nico smiled at that. I groaned and glared at her. She just laughed harder. 

“Come on we have to catch that train.” I muttered walking away. We made our way to platform twelve and only had a few minutes of waiting. We were first on seeing as we had no luggage or small children. I groaned. this would be a ten hour trip and then we still had even farther to go.

Nico stretched across two seats and made it clear that if anyone sat here they would wake up in an enemy country. Aqua took the window seat and I began to pace the aisles. The people in the car looked at me weirdly, like I might be a juvenile delinquent.

There were a lot of families traveling for the holidays. Some with older children, my age at least, two families with seven children each, and four mothers with babies. I glanced over at one girl who looked like my mother, same build, same hair, but her eyes were green. She seemed almost as fidgety as me. 

“Could you please sit down.” She snapped all of a sudden.

“I have severe ADHD.” I said she sighed.

“So do I but look at me.” She said. She did look like she had severe ADHD as she was fiddling with her charm bracelet, talking, and tapping her feet one second then kicking the side of the train the next second. I sighed and sat down next to Aqua. 

I couldn’t keep it up for more than a half an hour then I began to pace, on a whim (I do stuff like that) I decided to talk to the girl.

“So um…” I trailed off. 

“Lilly, Lily Clove” She said her green eyes meeting mine. 

“Lilly.” I repeated. “Why are you going to St. Louis?” 

“Oh I’m not, I have a train transfer there. I’m going to Seattle and then to my home town, Forks.” She crinkled her nose at the last part. 

“What were you doing in New York?” I asked.

“That’s not any of your business.”

“Okay. The way you say it I take it you don’t like Forks.”

“No that’s not it, it’s way out there in the middle of Olympic Forest so I can go bow hunting a lot, but since about three years ago since this really weird family moved in it has started to smell.” She sighed. I thought about that. Then it hit me.

“Smelled like what?” I asked.

“Rotten animal bodies which, believe me, I’ve smelled.” She said her nose scrunched up in distaste, I must have looked pretty horror struck because the next thing she said was; “Are you okay? You look like a deer who has just realized he’s being hunted,” 

“I’m fine, but I have to go.”

She shrugged. “Okay bye maybe we’ll talk again…” She trailed off and I realized I hadn’t given her my name.

“Shamrock Clover.” I said and she laughed.

“That’s almost as bad as my name.” She said.

“It’s worse then your name. At least yours is a name.” I said grinning, I went and sat next to Aqua. Who poked me.

“Hunting metaphor, she’s a keeper Shamrock.” Aqua teased. I looked at her.

“Shut up. It’s not funny, but I know where we need to go.” I said, this caught Aqua and Nico’s attention. “Fork Washington, home of just over three thousand.” Lilly turned around and said;

“Um there’s only 2,567 people in Forks.” She said. I rolled my eyes.

“Like I care, I was close enough.” I siad she rolled her eyes.

 

“Well how do you plan on getting there?” She asked.

“My uncle gave me this for emergencies; I think this counts as an emergency.” I said pulling out Apollo’s credit card. 

“We could have used that at the beginning!” Aqua exclaimed. I sighed.

“Well I forgot okay?” I said putting my hands up in the surrender position “Anyway we need to hurry and get to forks as fast as we can. I would say take a plane but with Aqua and Nico I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” Lilly gave me an odd look from her perch on the seat in front of me. 

“You’re going to have to get there some way, I can take you. I know the state like the back of my hand.” Lilly said. I glanced at Aqua and Nico, we all knew it was   
dangerous to involve a mortal in this, but we did need help, Seattle was a big place. 

“Okay, sit next to Nico, and we’ll go over the plan.” I said Nico groaned and moved over, Lilly sat as far away from him as possible without falling off the seat.

“So when we get to St. Louis we will have to run and get a train ticket to Seattle at the same time as you Lilly. Then from there we need to get on the train, which just plain old making will be hard enough, sitting through it is another story. From Seattle we take a bus to-“ I started, but Lilly interrupted

“Um we don’t have a bus a family friend is picking me up.” 

“Okay we go with this family friend and from there… well we’ll let the Fates decide that.” I finished hoping Lilly wouldn’t catch the accidental plural of the word fate. 

“Where will you stay? There’s not a hotel in Forks.” Lilly said. I looked at Aqua and Nico, none of us had thought about that yet.

“Who’s up for camping?” I asked. Lilly snorted.

“In Washington, unless you want to drown of freeze to death, you don’t go camping.” She said. I sighed, now I was in a rut. 

“We could sleep in the school Gym, Percy and I did that once when we were on a quest and didn’t know where else to go.” Aqua offered

“I guess we could give it a shot if not, I hope you packed warm.” I sighed

“You could stay at my house.” Lilly said.

“Are you sure you’re Uncle won’t mind?” I asked.

“He’s never home” Lilly shrugged “besides he’ll only lock me in the town limits, oh wait he tried.” I noticed a certain hint of bitterness in her voice.

“I take it you don’t like your uncle.” She groaned.

“Please he’s never here. He hates it when I go hiking,- or hunting or for that matter- out of town. he doesn’t even know I’m here.” She said.

“How did you get here?” I asked

She held up a credit card.“Stole it from my uncle.” 

“Why are you here if you’re not supposed to leave Forks?” Lilly sighed and looked at her feet.

“I was looking for my mom.” She sighed. “My uncle said she let for New York when I was a baby and never came back. I hoped maybe she was still there but instead I get a firm you-must-go-home-or-i-will-tell-your-uncle from a guy in a wheelchair.”

“I’m sorry, if it makes you feel better my dad left right after my conception. I only have my half-brothers.” Aqua said. 

“My Mom is gone and my dad is dead.” I added. Nico gave what I thought was the barest hint of a smile.

“My dad is the dead, but I guess we’ve all got daddy issues huh?” 

“Yeah, mine committed suicide after my mom never came back.” Lilly said. We sat there for a moment just looking at each other. For a moment we were all the same, not demi-gods and mortals just teenagers. Each hoping that their parent would return but each knowing they wouldn’t. For that one moment I felt some connection to Lilly, like we had met before. 

I didn’t know what it was, but I did know it was important. I couldn’t pin it, I shrugged it off it was probably nothing. 

“I’ll be right back.” Aqua said suddenly, she got up, her eyes sparkling with un-shead tears and she walked off towards the bathroom.

“I’ll go check on her.” Lilly said softly and fallowed. Nico moved over to where I was. 

“Look as much as I don’t like it, we need Lilly and Aqua because when the time comes, you and her have to be the ones to go to Italy. Aqua and I can’t get on a plane. We have to protect her though, I would kill myself if I hurt anyone the way your mom hurt me.” 

“Nico,” I said. “just Lilly and I can’t go up against thirty vampires. Nine maybe but not thirty. You and Aqua can’t come, we are alone. Nico I think we have to face facts; we’re in over our heads.” 

“I know, but Aqua is like the sister I had ripped from me. She is so full of hope even though she knows we probably won’t succeed. There is enough hope to give her strength. Lilly seems alto like you so you should be alright. I can focus on protection, but we’re going to need someone to train us for a while, and I know just the guy.” Nico said. 

“Who?” I asked.

“Well Shamrock, I’ll have to temporarily bring her back to life, she’ll have an expiration date though. She’s a hunter, like you.” Nico said. “It’s almost time to meet Zoё Nightshade...”


	4. Welcome to Forks! Home of the Walking Dead!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Shamrock had known what he had agreed to by staying at Lilly's he wouldn't have done it in the first place, unfortunately he doesn't know what he got himself into, which of course results in more trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, I have been driving from St Louis to Washington DC and I haven't slept properly in a week. But now we can get back on track!

Chapter 4

Welcome to Forks! Home of the Walking Dead!

Courage is being afraid but saddling up anyway – John Wayne

 

We arrived in Seattle at five in the morning and Lily was right, there was no bus going to Forks. A guy the size of a horse pulled up in a pickup truck with a little girl in the back. Lilly motioned for us to get in, but once we did I regretted it. He smelled like a wet dog and the little girl smelled worse, I was nearly sick on sight.

“Are you okay Shamrock?” Aqua asked. I nodded, not trusting myself to talk. Nico had a scowl of disgust on his face. 

“Something in this car needs to be dead.” He said. 

“You get used to the smell. It took me about a year but you get used to it.” Lilly rolled her eyes. Aqua raised and eyebrow.

“I don’t smell anything.” She said. I looked at the guy only to realize he wasn’t wearing a shirt. This annoyed me, and clearly annoyed Lilly. 

“Jake put a shirt on.” She grumbled. Jake sighed and looked at the little girl.

“Nessie, hand me that sweat shirt.” He said. The little girl handed him the shirt.

“You named your kid after the Loch Ness Monster?” I asked, these people were weirder then I thought.

“No, she’s not mine and her name is Reneesme.” He said. I raise an eyebrow.

“Is that even a word?” I crossed my arms over my chest as everyone was laughing (except Nico) I looked around and saw ‘Reneesme’ mimicking me. 

“It might not be a word but it’s my name so put up with it you daft dimbo!” She said scowling.

“Nice kid you got there.” Nico said sarcastically. Then, and this is what shocked me as she was eight, Nessie leaned over and bit Nico. “Your kid bit me!” He yelled nursing a rather large half-moon bite on his arm, that was turning green.

“Nessie you know better. Don’t worry she’s not poisonous.” Jake said, I didn’t know if he was joking about the poisonous part.

“Man she’s EIGHT! You’re little vampire should know better!” Nico yelled. Then it hit me. The way smelled, the way she bit, she was a vampire.

“Let me out of the car.” I said. 

Lilly turned around and looked at me. “What?” She asked. I looked her in the eye.

“Let. Me. Out.” I said, my breathing was ragged and deep now, I felt suddenly claustrophobic and like vomiting.

“Sham you can’t we’re on the road, moving.” She said, I let out a feral growl and punched through the back window, unbuckled, and leapt out.I landed in a couched   
position. 

I heard Jake pull over and get out, yelling for Nessie and the others to stay there, but I was already in the forest, running as fast as I could away from the vehicle. I didn’t care where I was or where I was going. 

How could I be so stupid! I walked into this! I should have known from the beginning! I cursed myself.

Calm down my child, I know it goes against everything natural but you must put up with these people in order to save the hunters. Grace has been removed from   
the hunters. I will see you soon my son. Behave.

I heard a howl behind me, soon joined by at least seven others. I was quickly flanked by a large grey wolf, the others were bigger. I realized this one was female. I looked at her, her face looked almost human. 

“Can you help me?” I asked, she seemed to smile and motioned for me to get on her back. I leapt on. She then turned and howled, crap, she was taking me right back into the pack. We stopped by the road and my eyes saw a horrible sight. 

Grace lay limp on the road, her hair matted and when I got closer, I saw that it was blood. She had a large footprint on her chest, she had been kicked. I did a quick analysis and estimated at least four ribs were broken and if she weren’t a huntress, she would have been dead some time ago. My mother’s protection was failing fast. 

I grabbed my bag and dug out some nectar; I poured most of it down her throat. It was a dangerous amount but it healed her ribs. Then I held her up a bit.

“Aqua, there is a stream a half mile from here, do you think you can bring some water from it, so I can clean her hair out?” I asked. 

“I-I can try.” She said her eyes wide with horror, she closed them and we had to wait a few minutes, but soon I saw a snake of water come from the woods. She turned it into a continues waterfall. It wasn’t much but her hair grew clean enough for me to pour a bit of nectar over the wound. 

“Thank you Aqua.” I said. She only nodded, beads of sweat running down her face from the effort. Grace’s green eyes fluttered open and she gasped. Then a girl came running into the road.

“EDWARD! I CAN’T FIND HIM, SOMEONE KILL ME!” The girl was screaming. Grace flew up and smacked the girl who in turn threw her back into my arms. I caught her and she stood up.

“In the car. Now.” Lilly ordered. We nodded and climbed in the car, Grace between me and Aqua. Grace was very pale.

“Are you okay?” I asked. She nodded, four seconds later she vomited, shook her head and collapsed. I cleaned the vomit up using Jake’s sweat shirt and then threw it in the bed of the truck. Then I moved Grace so her head was on my lap and her feet on Nico, who cringed.

It took us another half an hour to reach Lilly’s, which was about a mile away from the town surrounded by forest with a small path leading to the road. Grace began to stir, Aqua and I held her between us so she wouldn’t fall over and hurt herself.

“How much farther?” I asked Grace didn’t weight much more then myself and was at least and inch shorter (fine half and inch) but I could tell Aqua was getting tired of carrying Grace. I couldn’t blame her. The sun was beginning to rise and we had one hell of a night. Since Nico showed no sign of helping, I could only hope the house was close.

“Right here.” Lilly said. Then the path opened up to a clearing with a white picket fence around it and a yard. In the middle sat a small white cottage; I couldn’t really call it a house because it was so small. Lilly dug out the key and unlocked the door. “Grace you can sit on the couch.” Grace only nodded. We set her on the couch and went into the small kitchen. 

“Do you have any meat?” I asked.

“Um out in the freezer, I’ll be right back.” She siad. She returned a few minutes later with a chunk of frozen venison. “Here, it tastes really good in a broth. I have some.” She went over and pulled some out or the fridge, and poured it in a pot, which she put on the stove. She broke the venison into smaller chunks and added it in. “You can take it off in an hour. Now I have to go to school, I’ll be back at three. Please try not to break anything.” 

“We won’t.” I promised. 

“Thanks Sham, now there is a spare bed room upstairs, then with the master and mine. You can sleep in any one of those.” Lilly grabbed a back pack and ran out the door. I went out to where Grace and Aqua were talking.

“Is it true, are you going to bring Zoё back for a while?” Grace asked Nico. He nodded.

“Tonight, if I can find a grave yard.” He said. Grace gave a weak smile, I went and sat next to her.

“Um I need to shower, where is the bathroom?” Grace asked, I lead her to the master bedroom.

“I assume it’s in here. I brought you a spare tunic.” I handed her the smaller tunic. 

“Thanks I’ll be down soon.” She smiled and went into the bathroom. I ran back down stairs and found Aqua asleep in an armchair, Nico was watching television. I sat next to him and he glanced over at me.

“SO are you like your mom?” He asked.

“How so?” I asked raising an eyebrow. HE turned a shade of red.

“Well um, do you like, not notice girls the way the rest of us do?” HE asked.

“No they are just human beings. Why?” I asked. 

“Well, um, Lilly is really beautiful and I wondered if you thought of her as beautiful.” Nico rubbed the back of his head.

“No not really. I just think of girls as people, not potential life partners.” I shrugged. “But it could also be how much Lilly looks like my mom.”

“Not really, sure they have the same color hair but hers is curly and she has your eyes, but something about her reminds me of Percy.” He said. 

“What on earth could possibly remind you of Percy?” I asked.

“I don’t know but it does.” He said. Suddenly Grace came down stairs, her hair wet, she looked much better then she had earlier. 

“Hello Shamrock.” She said her soft accent make my name sound more like Shamroc, but I didn’t mind.

“Hello Grace.” I greeted. “Feeling better?” 

“Much, but I’m starving.” She said.

“Well Breakfast will be ready soon.” I told her. Grace nodded and sat next to me. I took the remote from Nico and switched to the history channel. A show about Ireland was on, Galway Bay to be exact. “Grace that’s where, you’re from.” I commented she only nodded. Well I soon found out I was wrong the show was not about Ireland but about Irish immigration.

“They’re wrong.” Grace spoke up softly at the part about Ellis Island. “It wasn’t great. It was worse then Hades, no offence.” 

“None taken.” Nico said. I glanced at Grace before going to take the broth off the stove. I brought us each some and woke Aqua. 

“Here.” I handed her some, she ate it like she hadn’t eaten in years. I only then realized how hungry I was and wolfed (Get it?) mine down. Grace was slightly slower and Nico set his on the coffee table saying he would eat later.

“I’m going back to bed.” Aqua said.

“Lilly said we could sleep in her room, the guest room or the master. Just take one.” I called over my shoulder. She nodded and went upstairs. 

“Well, I think I’ll go to bed too.” Nico grumbled and went upstairs, leaving me to watch ‘Irish immigration’ with Grace, who looked ready to cry. 

“Would you like me to turn it off?” I Asked she nodded. 

“Can we go outside?” She asked. I nodded and we went to the back porch. There was a small porch swing we sat down on. It was small, but not too small; we each had enough room not to invade each other’s personal space. It was cold but Grace didn’t seem to notice that her hair was freezing to her tunic.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked she shook her head. 

“Not really, after a good hundred and twenty or so years with the huntresses, I don’t really notice.” She shrugged.

“A hundred and twenty!” I exclaimed.

“Give or take a few.” Grace said. “Sham sometimes I wish that I could freeze time. Right now is one of those perfect little moments when I want nothing more than to freeze it.” 

“Why?” I asked.

“Because if there is one lesson life taught me, it would be that nothing is forever. People say forever but they never really mean it. So if I could freeze little moments, I would keep them to look at and relive when I was sad.” She explained.

“How about a picture?” I asked 

“I guess, but I don’t have a camera.” She pointed out.

“Okay then, well how about we go back inside.” I suggested she nodded and we went inside. 

I don’t know when we fell asleep but the next thing I knew, Lilly was bent over me. Her auburn curls half frozen.

“Wake up, I made lunch.” She said I nodded and woke up Grace who was asleep in the arm chair. She brought out a sandwich and hot chocolate for Grace and a bit of meat and hot chocolate for me. “Is that okay? I can get you something else if you would like.” 

“No it’s fine, I love meat.” I siad and began to eat. Nico and Aqua stumbled down stairs looking a little tired but as though they had showered and slept well. 

“Hey are we resurrecting Zoё tonight?” Nico asked. “I’ll need a graveyard and McDonalds.” 

“Sure, why McDonalds?” Lilly asked. 

“Offerings to Hades.” HE said.

“You are demi-gods!” She said.

“Um yes.” I said.

“I am too, my uncle always told me but I never knew if my godly parent was the man or woman.” She siad.

“Well I’m a child of Artemis, Nico is Hades, Aqua is Poseidon and Grace is a huntress.” I said.

“I assumed as much, you are who my uncle was talking about last week!” She said. I nodded.

“Who is your uncle?” I asked.

“Well I don’t know if he’s really my uncle but I just always called him uncle, I doubt we are related.” She shrugged I nodded but something was off. 

“Um, so are we going to do it?” Nico asked. I nodded.

“Lets go then.” Lilly said picking up the phone. “Hey Jake I need another favor, can you drive us to the grave yard? Thanks Jake!” 

“Did you have to?” I Asked.

“Would you rather walk?” She asked.

“To be honest. Yes I would rather walk.” I said.

The Jake guy drove us to the grave yard, we stopped to pick up four Happy Meals on the way though. Jake didn’t ask questions, but I knew he thought this was weird. Lilly just said a lot of weird stuff goes on around here and he has quit questioning people. 

The Grave yard was small but full, a shocking amount of the graves were recent. I glanced and Grace who came a little closer to me. 

“Um was there a massacre here?” She asked Lilly laughed.

“No there was an issue with a few bloodsuckers.” She said.

“Dirty rotten Leech.” I grumbled. Nico pulled us to a tree and bent down pouring the food and drinks on the ground.

“Hades hear my plea. Let the huntress Zoё Nightshade, Hesperide, Huntress and friend walk theses grounds once more. Even if only for a few days let her walk. Let her walk” He chanted. For a moment nothing happened then a shadowy figure appeared, it gained more substance.

Within a few minutes there was a girl with dark brown hair, tanned skin, and brown eyes standing there. Her face was so regal I had trouble resisting the urge to bow. She looked around.

“So thee is the child of my lady?” She asked. 

“Hi I’m Shamrock.” I said stupidly. 

“Word travels fast in the underworld. Now may I ask why thou hast summoned me?” She asked. 

“We need you to train Shamrock, Lilly, and Grace to fight the living dead.” Nico said.

“Oh, well, I can do it but boy thou shall not come near while I am training them.” She siad Nico nodded. “Very well, let us take our leave.” She took the lead and as we got back into the car. I looked at Grace.

“Did she always talk like she stepped out of Romeo and Juliette?” I asked. Grace nodded.

“Oh it was much worse in the 1800’s I assure you of that.” She said. Fifteen minutes later we were at Lilly’s house and make a training schedule.

“We begin as soon at the sun rises.” Zoё said. “Now I am going to retire, I suggest thou does the same.” 

The girls all slept in Lilly’s room, I took the window seat in the guest bedroom, and Nico took the bed. The night was clear and I could see the moon glowing angrily. I don’t know how long I looked at the moon, but I remember the dream well.

 

This time I was fallowing Orion through the forest, the night was black and there was no moon. I assumed by the large stalagmites we were once again in the underworld. He went up to Zoё, who was fading, we must have been summoning her.

“If you see Artemis tell her I love her and shall never blame her.” He said. Zoё nodded and smiled, then was gone all together. Orion continued to walk. Then he sat down and looked sadly at his dog. “I miss the moon Sirius.” A tear rolled down his face. He opened the front of his tunic. A scar was directly over his heart, in the shape of a crescent moon. “It’s odd, but I love the scar that killed me. It reminds me of her.” 

I had never seen anyone this devoted to my mother before. It hurt though, to hear this gut talk about her, like he loved her. She deserved so much better.

“You know boy, your mother could have done much better then me.” Orion said I realized he could see me and talk to me.

“I know that, but she loved you.” I said.

“I know and I loved her very much.” He siad.

“Tell me, what made you so different?” I Asked.

“ I will never know, but I believe that it was how I was raised. My mother was an ex huntress and had a small statue of Artemis her father had made in the house. As long as I can remember, I have loved that statue. I grew up learning that she deserved as much respect as the others. My mother used to tell me stories about her. I was fascinated by her.” He said.

“How did you meet her?” I asked.

“Well I was hunting one day when I stumbled upon her, she knew who I was and didn’t kill me. She was easily the most beautiful person I had ever seen. Her long auburn hair loose and her hunting tunic more like a boys then a girls.” Orion sighed. “She was perfect, at least in my eyes. Anyway we became friends and then lovers. I had asked her to marry me a week before I was killed” 

“Oh I’m… sorry?” I said, it came out more as a question.

“Just do me a favor and tell your mom I don’t blame her and I love her.” He said and the dream faded to black

I woke to Grace bending over me. Her red hair damp and in her tunic, ready to fight. I could smell Lilac and wasn’t sure if it was perfume or shampoo. 

“Morning Sham, we have training in five minutes and then breakfast.” She said. “Hurry and get dressed.” I looked down at myself and saw I was in my underwear, my white and gray crescent moon print underwear. I silently cursed myself for only bringing these. 

“This is weird.” I said, Grace turned the color of her hair and practically ran out of the room. I dressed quickly. Then realized I hadn’t undressed last night. I went down stairs slightly confused until I saw Nico, laughing.

“Nice undies Sham.” He said.

“You’re a creep.” I said as I walked out to the back yard. The sum wasn’t up yet and it was cold. I stood next to Grace, our breath creating little puffs in the air. Lilly was shivering a bit but Grace, Zoё, and I were fine. 

“Get out your sword.” Zoё ordered I materialized my sword out of thin air. “Not bad, but it took you thirty seconds.Keep practicing and thou shall be able to do this.” She snapped her fingers and in two seconds there was a sword there. “Grace.” Grace snapped her fingers and it took her five seconds. 

“It’s never been that fast before!” Grace said with glee.

“Thou needs to wish to summon the sword and the harder thou wishes, the faster the weapon shall come to thee.” She said. “Lilly your turn.” It took Lily fifty seconds but I could tell that using her power wore her out more then me. “Keep trying. Boy thou shall now be my example. Draw your weapon.” 

I barely had enough time to raise it until she lunged. Her hair flew around her, she fought almost as well as my mother though she was easily as good as me. I was soon pinned to the floor.

“Thou must work harder and train more.” She said. I took this a personal insult looking back on it, that was a very bad idea but at that moment I didn’t really care.

“I just spent the last week in a crazy camp full of ADHD kids with weapons and you are telling me I’m not good enough!” I said. Zoё, who had been walking towards Grace turned. 

“Yes I do. You show to much restraint, as though you were afraid. You need to… you need to…” She trialed of at the end like she didn’t know which word to use. 

“Pull out all the stops?” Lilly offered.

“Go all out?” Grace suggested.

“Yes thou must ‘Go all out’” She said smiling. 

“What! You think I was holding back! I can show you not holding back!” I said and lunged at her. She side stepped me easily and soon we were locked in hand to hand combat. She kicked my chest and sent me flying back a good five meters, my feet tearing up the ground. I came and aimed a kick at her but she easily dodged. She was fighting me by moving four inches to the side each time. I ran at her again. Waiting for her to move, she didn’t and I didn’t hesitate, which was good. She grabbed my shoulders and firmly held me in place. 

“Thou needs to control thy’s anger.” She said. “Grace your turn.” Grace stepped forward and I stood next to Lilly.

“She’s amazing.” Lilly said.

“She hates the male kind.” I said. Lilly looked at me.

“She has a good reason.” She said.

“I don’t really care what Hercules did, I don’t like her.” I grumbled.

“I do. Why don’t you go get breakfast.” She suggested. I nodded and went inside. I grabbed a chunk of last night’s dinner (Meat) and sat down on the couch.

“So what do you think of her?” Nico asked.

“She’s stuck up and hates the male kind.” I said. Nico chuckled.

“You sound like you hate her as much as I do” Nico said.

“Nico you sound like you hate everyone.” I said.

“Not everyone. I like Percy, Aqua, and Thalia.” He siad he got a dreamy look on his face. 

“Ew. You have a crush on Thalia. Dude she’s your cousin!” I said. He blushed redder then Grace had earlier.

“Well the gods don’t think of it that way so neither do we!” He said. 

“What does she say to that?” I Asked. 

“You can’t tell her. She’ll kill me!” Nico said. I looked at him. 

“She’s like six years older than you!” I said doing the math in my head.

“Um she stopped aging I now have a chance to catch up!” He said. I looked at him, poor guy honestly thought Thalia would fall for it. 

“There is no way she’s going to fall in love with you.” I said. He sighed. 

“Really?” He asked I nodded. The girls came in and grabbed their food, Grace took the seat next to me and Zoё choose the seat far from Nico as physically possible. 

“Okay I have school today so once again you will be left here for a while. I don’t mean any offence but I would like it if you guys stayed out of the meat locker I need that. So I put some venison broth in the fridge for you guys, just heat it up when you get hungry. I’ll be back at two.” Lilly said.

“You said three yesterday.” I pointed out.

“I had choir practice, work hard, be good, and don’t touch my meat.” Lilly said walking out the door. 

“She sounds like my mother.” I mumbled. 

“You two look enough alike to be twins. You even have the same weird eyes.” Grace said. I looked at her. 

“We are not twins, what is the chance of that. Even my luck isn’t that bad.” I said. Grace furrowed her brow. 

“What do you mean that bad? Lilly’s really nice.” She said.

“I know I really like her, but even Apollo’s not stupid enough to keep the fact that my mom had twins from her.” I said. 

“I guess so, but Apollo did keep you from her.” Grace pointed out.

“Yeah but once that was discovered you think even he would get that it’s a bad idea to hide kids from there mothers.” I said. Zoё had been quite the whole time and I only noticed that she was there when she tapped.

“We must get back to work.” She said and motioned for me to fallow her out to the backyard. I did and saw Zoё had set up a small training course. 

Grace and I spent the rest of the morning on this course. I have to say I thought we did pretty good, but Zoё thought otherwise. While she was making lunch and Grace Nico and I were watching the history channel, I leaned over to Grace.

“Was Zoё always this strict?” I asked Grace nodded. 

“Oh yes, the hunters were at their strongest for the 250 years she was lieutenant. You see Thalia is a strong leader in keeping us united, but Zoё was stronger, she could keep us united and fit for a battle. She has summoned monsters at four in the morning just to keep us on our toes.” Grace said.

“Will she do that to us?” I asked.

“Most likely.” Grace said. Zoё set lunch on the table and told us to come and eat. When Nico and I attacked it like barbarians she glowered.

“Affable wolves.” She said. I looked at Grace.

“It’s an insult from Shakespeare.” She explained.

“Oh.” I said and made sure to east more carefully from then on. 

Zoё, Grace and I spent the rest of the afternoon sparing and once Lilly got home she and Zoё trained alone, and Grace and I were instructed to shower and put on decent clothes. I put my hunting tunic back on and combed my hair. I didn’t know why we were told to do this but I guessed I should listen. 

Grace was waiting downstairs in a new outfit. I looked her over, Green long skirt, long-sleeved green shirt and green head band. The Green brought out her eyes and made her look like a clover on fire. 

“Lilly laid it out for me. I’m not a huge fan of skirts but I like this one.” She said twirling. Nico scowled.

We had to wait half and hour for Zoё and Lilly but they also had to dress nice, I glanced at Lilly who was clad in a black skirt and silver shirt, Zoё hadn’t changed at all but had rebraided her hair. 

“Where are we going?” I asked. 

“Well the Blacks, Jakes family invited us to dinner so we kind of have to look nice.” Lilly explained. I grimaced. I hadn’t liked Jake very much. 

Dinner turned out to be an awkward event the screaming girl ( I can’t remember her name, Hella? Stella? Oh whatever!) and her guy (Edmund? Eddy? Ed?) were there with the Loch Ness Vampire. So I didn’t eat anything instead I tried not to vomit which proved to be a difficult task. Grace ended up being the one to vomit and get us home.

Lilly and Zoe sat up front Nico, Aqua, Grace and I had to cram into the back. Jake offered to drive us but Zoe assured him we could drive ourselves and would return the truck in the morning.

“Um Zoe I really hate to point it out but none of us here have a drivers license.” I pointed out. She looked back at me.

“I have been driving since automobiles were invented Shamrock, I assure you I can drive a fifteen year-old truck.” She said, pulling out of the drive way. 

“Okay.” I said. Only Nico now showed the least bit of doubt in her. Grace was to sick to say anything. She just kind of looked forward and didn’t move.

“Go to sleep it’ll help.” I said, she nodded and before I knew it she was asleep. Nico grimaced. 

“Couldn’t she have waited?” HE asked.

“Nico she spent five minutes throwing up, cut her a break, besides now we have someone else to accompany us on the quest.” I said. Nico sighed and pushed Grace closer to me. Her small warm body creating more heat then I would have thought possible. I checked her for a fever but she seemed fine. 

“Zoe could you hurry up please?” I asked. Zoe sighed and nodded. I felt a lurch and we sped up. Five minutes later we had reached Lily’s house. I woke Grace up, and we trudged into the house. 

We were all exhausted and hungry, but instead of eating we just went up to bed. I changed quickly into a loose cotton t-shirt and crawled over to my window. I looked up at the moon.

“Mom where are you?” I asked it. 

Artemis was in fact driving that moon, she had been up all day and night working on battle plans, with Athena and was in much need of a break. She choose to drive alone that night and as she passed over Forks she felt a tug twice as hard and usual. She pondered it a moment and realized with a start what her uncle Hades had said about ‘keeping the hunt well-conditioned.’

“Zoe.” She muttered. But there was no time in six short hours Zeus would meet with the filthy bloodsuckers and try to negotiate their way out of it. “Please stay out of trouble my child. I love you.” 

She was unaware that her soft voice carried down to two sets of ears instead of the one it was intended for. Somewhere down there two heard it before they fell asleep…


	5. I'll Make a Hero Out of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoe Nightshade loves to push people to their limits. Shamrock often pushes people to their limits with out knowing it. Put these two together and something is bound to happen.

Chapter Five

I’ll Make a Hero Out of You

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.  
Joseph Addison

Shamrock

 

I woke the next day to Zoe bending over me. Her fierce brown eyes full of anger. I sat up and looked around. It was five in the morning.

“Thou is late, the morning meal has been read for five minutes.” She said. I sighed and she left the room. I put on the hunting tunic from last night and ran down stairs to find Grace, Lilly, and Nico dressed the same way I was.

“What are we doing today?” I asked.

“Over water training, close combat, running, fire training and survival.” Aqua informed me coming out of the kitchen with a bowl of cereal, she was dressed in a light blue tunic and her long blonde hair was braided.

“Where did you get that?” I asked. She rolled her eyes.

“Lilly, she has like nine of these.” She said. 

Lilly only shrugged and said; “I make them, there’s nothing else to do around here anyway.” Then we fallowed Zoe outside.

“First, Grace get with Nico, Lily thou and Aqua shall be pared and Shamrock thou shall have the privilege of fighting me.” She gave me a sinister smile I gulped. 

“Okay.” I tried to sound brave but she was really good at fighting. I might be able to match her skills if I wasn’t so tired. I yawned, in that split second, she attacked. We fought for a few minutes before she was able to get me to the ground. 

“Thou must remain vigilante. Vigilance, constant vigilance!” She barked. 

“Are you quoting Harry Potter?” Was the only thing I had to say.

“What is a Hairy Potter?” She asked.

“No, not as in the potter is hairy, you know the international phenomenon?” I asked she shook her head and I sighed. “Never mind.” 

“Thou hast done well.” She said, I thought she was talking to me but it turned out to be Grace she was talking to. Grace was sitting on Nico with a dagger at his throat. How she managed to hold him down was beyond me, as she didn’t weigh much, and he certainly weighed more than she did. She smiled, accepting the praise from her superior. Lilly and Aqua were standing oddly to the side. “Who won?” Aqua pointed to Lilly. “Okay good, the outcome was as expected. No offense toward Aqua of course.” 

“None taken, I don’t often beat people with her strength and ability.” Aqua said. Zoe nodded and got off of me. She pulled me to my feet and walked into the forest.

We fallowed her for about half a mile before we came to a river. I gulped as I saw what we were expected to do. There were long wooden poles about a half a foot in diameter and three feet apart. Zoe walked to the edge and began to leap gracefully from pole to pole. Once she was at the other side she called for me to come over.

I walked to the edge. It was a very fast moving river, and it was a very cold day. I took one tentative step on the pole.

Now this may sound silly but I hate water, to be specific fast moving water. I am okay in still lakes or pools, but fast moving water scares me to death. I have never been able to explain why just that I am terrified of it. 

Once I got to the second pole I heard Grace step on to the pole. I made my way to the third and then fourth, Grace right behind me the whole time. When I was about half way across I made my first big mistake. I went too fast and lost my footing, the second big mistake was instead of trying to catch myself I fell backwards, expecting ground. What I found was Grace. She tried to catch me which caused her to fall too. Then I hit the water and could only feel one thing, fear.

 

Grace

 

Grace hit the water and felt an overwhelming cold. She hadn’t felt this cold in a long time. Her head broke the surface and she saw Shamrock thrashing about next to her. She was breathing hard and didn’t see any sign of the river slowing. She grabbed on to Shamrocks hand (She would later insist this was to keep him from hurting either one of them) and squeezed it. Shamrock calmed down a bit, but not enough to pull them to the side. 

Grace could feel her clothes weighting them down. Sure they weren’t heavy when dry and in the forest, but these were winter tunics, it was when they got wet that they got heavy. She wasn’t aware of how long she fought but eventually she felt Shamrock calm down enough to help her. By then she was out of energy and slowly she slipped into darkness.

 

Shamrock

I had barely the strength to pull us both to the side before I collapsed next to Grace. Still holding her hand.

I wasn’t sure how long I had been out, but I woke in Lilly’s house. Maybe it had all been some horrible nightmare. I sat up and looked around, Grace was sitting in the Armchair across from me, looking very shaken. Nope, not a nightmare. 

“Grace! Oh gods, I’m really sorry about going out on you like that.” I franticly. What kind of person was I? I just let Grace hold us above water for who knows how long and thrashed about. 

“I-it’s fine. We’re alive. I’m going to bed.” She said, stood up and walked out. I saw that Zoe was the only one left here.

“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have made you do that. What kind of Lieutenant am I?” Zoe murmured. I looked over at the time and saw it was ten o’clock at night.

“How long was I out?” I asked.

“About 15 hours. I’m really sorry, I’m a horrible person, I should not have put thou in danger.” Zoe said.

“It’s fine, You’re a great Lieutenant, my mother was lucky to have you.” I said honestly.

“I can’t keep her son out of danger. I am not worth anything.” She said.

“Zoe, My life is kind of dangerous right now. You had nothing to do with how I choose my path.” I said. She looked up at me.

“Grace was worried about thee.” She said suddenly. This threw me off a bit seeing as Grace and I got along, but she wasn’t my biggest fan.

“Why?” I asked, though now that I thought about it, I had felt a little hurt when she had left abruptly, more so than I should have anyway.

“Lilly would be better.” She stood and left. Lilly came down the stairs, sat next to me and looked me in the eye. 

“Okay Shamrock, first thing you need to know is how hard Grace fought to keep you alive. She, um.” Lilly looked really uncomfortable. “tried CPR. She lit a fire and carried you half a mile to a reservation. We couldn’t figure out why. Well we then found out that while you two were out there you forged a bond. No one else had anything to do with this it was entirely on you two and no one knows where this bond will take you. We kind of just have to let the Fates play it like they want.” I took this all in and then realized something.

“What kind of CPR?” I asked, Lilly stood up and grabbed a hot bowl of soup.

“Soup?” She asked.

“Lilly.” I growled.

“Fine, um every kind she knew. Which is most of them. Night!” She practically flew up the stairs. She was already gone by the time I realized that that included mouth to mouth resuscitation. 

“LILLY!” I yelled. I heard a high pitched yelp and a few seconds later, Aqua came tumbling down the stair case. 

“Gee, thanks for making me fall down a flight of stairs.” She grumbled.

“Sorry, Lilly just told me I received mouth to mouth from a girl.” I said.

“The only one Grace didn’t use was mouth to mouth. She did however carry you to the reservation and have them try every traditional method they knew. Which by the way did include bathing you in raw meat.” Aqua said. 

“That would explain the smell.” I said sniffing myself. I could smell raw meats and seasoning. “I smell seasoning, did they try to cook me?” 

“No, the seasoning was my idea of a joke.” Aqua said laughing. I rolled my eyes. 

“Good night.” I said and got up and went upstairs, I heard a soft singing. I peeked in Lilly’s room and saw Grace laying on the floor in her sleeping bag singing to   
herself. “Night Grace.” I whispered so softly that all she heard was the soft sigh after words, and her song wavered only for a moment. 

Nico was sitting on the bed in out room looking out at the forest and polishing his Stratgyn iron blade. I went over to my bed (Okay my window seat with a blanket) and lay down. I looked once up at the moon, but was to weary to say anything. I fell asleep looking up at the silver orb that was the moon. It was an angry moon. 

 

Olympus

 

The council had not gone well at all, they had tried and failed to get the half-bloods back. Zeus had declared Shamrocks quest official and that none of the gods could interfere . Now here she was in front of her brother’s house. She almost didn’t knock then she remembered that he had female wood nymphs for ‘servants’ and decided to knock. She knocked once and her brother came to the door.

“Hey little sis, are you -“ He started but was cut off by his sister hugging him.

“I’m worried about Shamrock.” She said.

“So worried you would choke your brother.” He wheezed.

“Yes.” She said, he pried her off of him and looked down at her. Artemis’ silver eyes were full of worry and anxiety. 

“Okay come on.” He pushed the door closed and stepped into the cold night air of Olympus. “Let’s go on a walk through the forest.” 

They walked to the Olympus Forest in silence, and once they came to a decent clearing, Artemis scaled a tree and sat in the lower branches.

“Have you told anyone about how you worry?” He asked.

“Yes.” She said.

“What did they say.” 

“Nothing.” 

“Nothing?” He asked. She looked down at him, all he could make out were her eyes, the color of the full moon. 

“He never says anything.” She said matter-of-factually. She looked back up at the stars, well at one particular Constellation.

“Oh, Arty I don’t think it count’s to ask a dead guy for advice.” He said, but as soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t. She jumped down and looked up at him, her silver eyes blazing with anger, sadness, and regret. 

“Whose fault is it he’s dead?” She asked. 

“Mine, and I’m sorry Arty, really I am but I just think you need to ask someone, alive for advice, no Sirius doesn’t count.” He said, glancing down at the small white hunting dog next to her, who cocked his head and looked at him, wagging his tail slightly. 

“I know, but you may have kids, but I’m the goddess of childbirth, I am the bond between mother and child. I couldn’t stand to watch him die.” Artemis said.

“Are you saying you would interfere if it came down to his death?” Apollo asked, she turned to him.

“I am saying that. Good night Phoebus.” She turned on her heel and ran, leaving him alone. He looked up at Orion. 

“Man how did you live with her?” He said, Orion only twinkled as though he was smiling. 

 

Washington State

 

Shamrock

 

I woke to a high pitched scream. I fell out of bed, ran down the stairs, and saw Zoe standing there. 

“Oh good thou hast gotten up.” She said.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Oh that was Nico.” She said, I looked at Nico who was laying on the floor.

“What happened?” I asked again.

“She kicked me where I should not be kicked.” He whimpered.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“He tried to take my bacon.” Was her only answer as she stuck another piece of bacon on to the end of the fork and ate it.

“You don’t eat bacon with a fork, you use your fingers.” I said. Her eyes widened.

“That’s barbaric.” She sat down at the table. Grace came down the stairs, glanced at Nico and went to get breakfast. I made a waffle and sat down. Grace hesitated to take the empty seat next to me, but in the end sat down, on the edge of her chair. 

“I’ll shower, it’s not my fault I was bathed in raw meat!” I exclaimed, looking at Grace who turned the color of her hair and went back to her food. “Why raw meat?” 

“The smell is supposed to wake you up and the, um, blood has some healing property.” Grace said softly, still not looking up from her breakfast. 

“Okay then, remind me to talk to this Jake guy about blood.” I said. 

“Oh, it was some guy called Sam, not Jake.” Lilly said coming into the dining room. “Aqua breakfast.” 

I heard Aqua come running down the stairs and a few moments later, she was at the table on my other side. She froze before eating. 

“Whoa, I can almost see the tension at this table.” She said, Grace got up and left. “Was it something I said?” 

“No, Grace is having a difficult morning.” Zoe said. “If I know, her she’s going to take a long hot shower. Expect her in an hours’ time.” 

“What about training?” I asked.

“We will finish that once Grace arrives. Today is our last day to train, I… expire tomorrow.” She said sadly.

“Yeah, Sham, we have three plane tickets at mid night to D.C and from there, Rome.” Lilly said.

“I thought we had to go to Volterra?” I asked.

“Well the prophecy says Rome.” Nico said sitting down, wincing as he did so.

“Okay, but we’re ADHD how on earth are we going to sit on a plane for hours on end?” I asked. Lilly looked at me, and held up a small bottle.

“I take these when I go to school, they help us calm down somewhat if we take on before we get on the plane to Rome. They will wear off right before we land.” She said. 

“What about your Uncle, won’t he notice you’re gone?” I asked, she snorted.

“I once spent Two weeks in Korea and it took him six months to finds out.” Lilly said. I looked at her. 

“Okay, but what are the side-affects of those pills?” I asked.

“Um you aren’t hungry, and when they wear off you get really hungry, tired, irritable, and by an outsiders view, irritating.” She listed counting them off on her fingers.

“No need to worry about irritability, it’s natural for me, but tired usually makes me four times more irritable.” I said.

“How can you get more irritating?” Nico asked, I glared at him.

“Oh this isn’t bad,” Zoe spoke up. “Nico your problem is that you find everyone irritating.” 

“I do not!” HE yelled.

“Yes you do.” Aqua agreed. Nico scowled and went back to his cereal.

“Okay so now problem two, Grace and Shamrock.” Lilly said.

“What! There is no problem!” I protested.

“Oh please, thou can barely look at her.” Zoe butted in. 

“You just have to butt in at the worst times don’t you!” I said. Zoe just looked at me. 

“Stop it you two, Sham there is a growing tension between you and Grace, which will make things more and more difficult as time wears on.” Lilly said.

“Then how do you suggest we revise it?” I asked. 

“I want you two to talk things out during lunch, I will sit here and make sure that things don’t get worse.” Lilly ordered. 

“What, I can’t even look her in the eye and now you expect me to talk to her about, what happened. We held hands Lilly! Do you know what that means?” I said.

“Oh you held hands.” She said sarcastically. I rolled my eyes.

“Look, I’ve only made a girl blush once! Holding hands is not a step I am willing to take.” I said.

“Um, you do know friends hold hands all the time right?” Lilly asked.

“They do?” I asked.

“Yes they do.”

“It just seems to intimate.” I said.

“Good glad to know we’re on the same page, but the only reason I held your hand is because I knew we would most likely die if separated.” Grace said, entering the room, her hair damp and her jeans and T-shirt wrinkled.

“g-good then there’s no need for us to talk things through.” I shuttered, Grace nodded and I looked at her. We both knew that things would be tense and different, but there was no need to deal with that now, we had bigger problems on our hands at the moment.

“Good now we need to get to work.” Zoe said, before collapsing into a fit of coughing.

“Zoe!” Grace said, Zoe dropped her plate, her whole body was shaking, Grace brought her over to the couch, where she sat down.

“She’s fading, fast. WE don’t have time!” Nico said.

“Shamrock, remember everything, save my sisters.” Zoe told me, before closing her eyes, her body slowly started to become transparent and then, was gone. Grace sat down where Zoe had been.

“Grace are you okay?” Lilly asked, Grace shook her head, I took the seat next to her and looked at her. Her eyes were full of tears and her lower lip quivered.

“I-I’m fine.” She said more to herself then to us. “I’m f-fine, I’-I’ll be fine.” She kept repeating this and slowly, the crowd dispersed and we were left alone. Aqua brought Grace some tea, and Lilly and Nico left to talk to Jake about driving us to the airport.

Grace never cried, she kept telling her self she wasn’t going to cry and I had to hand it to her, she did a really good job. After about an hour she looked at me her eyes dry.

“How did you do that? The whole not crying thing?” I asked, she gave a weak smile.

“I was the oldest of fourteen.” She said.

“Fourteen!” 

“Seven sets of twins.” She siad.

“Wow, that’s a lot of siblings.” I said.

“Who did you think was in the picture?” She asked

“Cousins?”

“Nope all mine, the boy was my twin brother, Sean, we got on well. You kind of have to when you have that many kids on one boat. Mam couldn’t have us throwing each other over board now could she?” She said giving a weak smile. “Now let’s go train.” 

I fallowed her outside, were Nico and Lilly were fighting. Sword fighting, not yelling at each other. Aqua was sitting on the porch watching them, she seemed to   
brighten when she saw us and motioned for us to come over.

“Are you okay?” She asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Grace shot back.

“I just thought-“ she said but stopped after seeing me make the ‘drop it now’ motion. “Never mind.” 

We watched them for a few more minutes and then decided to get some practice in ourselves. It felt odd to be fighting Grace, but I kept it up because she was the only person available and I certainly wasn’t fighting Aqua. Suddenly grace stopped. I froze and looked at her, she sighed.

“You’re holding back.” She said.

“So?” 

“So, we can’t have you holding back.”

“What if you get hurt?”

“Oh you think I can’t take care of myself? She asked, putting her hands on her hips.

“No I just don’t want to hurt you!” I argued.

“Have you forgotten that I was the one who could beat you into a pulp in your garage?” She asked. This was starting to turn into a full blown argument.

“Hey!” Lilly yelled, as though rehearsed, Grace and I froze and turned towards her. “Stop fighting!” We dropped our weapons. “Now go sit down!” We did as we were ordered and sat down next to Aqua.

“Why did you listen to her?” Aqua asked.

“She looks like my mom.” I said. Grace nodded, neither one of us wanted to find out what happened when Lilly got angry. 

“Now stay there until you can get along.” Lilly ordered. Half an hour later, Lilly let us get up and go back to fighting each other, Nico looked impressed.

“How did you do that?” He asked her.

“Be firm and don’t take no for an answer.” She said, smiling. I rolled my eyes, it wouldn’t happen again. 

At about five in the afternoon, we decided it would be best to pack up and drive to Seattle for dinner. Since we only had our small back packs, we were ready to go with in a half an hour. We had one horrible ride into Seattle and finally we got something to eat. 

It was McDonalds, so nothing special, but it was nice to eat something after a very long hard day at work. Nico and Aqua agreed to go back to camp by train and   
clean up the mess we had left behind. 

I didn’t really like the idea of sitting on an airplane for the next three hours only to be stuck on another one of seven hours, but I didn’t have a choice. We were five hours early for our flight so we sat in a small coffee shop while we waited to go through check in. 

“Just tea.” Grace said to the man at the counter. He nodded and she went and sat down, I got straight black coffee for me and Lilly, I sat next to Grace around the small round table.

The whole café smelled of roasted coffee beans and espresso. It was a nice smell, I found it easy to relax, and forget most of my troubles.

“So Lilly, how long have you been running from your uncle?” I asked.

“Oh as soon as I got a passport and could fly alone, I was out of here on a regular biases.” Lilly sipped her coffee. 

“I could never do that to Apollo, I can barely leave Apollo’s sight for four hours without him finding out.” I said.

“Well my uncle once went away for the summer and I spent two weeks in Egypt, and another two in Korea.” She said looking away sadly. “Anyway Grace what do you do in the Hunters?”

“Oh nothing special, I’m just a hunter.” Grace shrugged. I glanced at my watch, we still had an hour before we had to go to our gate, I’ll admit I was a little afraid things would get awkward again, but I shrugged it off and jumped back into the conversation. 

“Every role is important.” Lilly assured.

“Not when there’s twenty five of you.” Grace argued.

“Of course it is. Wait twenty five how do you all fit in tents?” She asked,

“We have five girls a tent and Lady Artemis has her own.” Grace explained looking over at me, I guess I looked hopelessly lost as she said; “Sham the tents are bigger on the inside.”

“But If I fallow you on the hunt, where will I sleep?” I asked.

“You’ll probably get your own tent or something.” Grace shrugged drinking her tea. 

“Good because I would hate to be that close to a girl” I said.

“What’s wrong with girls?” Grace asked.

“Nothing, I just don’t really want to see bra’s and underclothing spread across my sleeping area.” I said.

“We are very clean.” Grace argued. I could see I was getting to her but I couldn’t resist.

“Really? What about the car incident?” 

“I was in shock!” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Shamrock.” She growled. I held my hands up.

“Sorry, sorry I was just messing with you.” I grinned, she rolled her eyes, and drank the last of her tea I gulped down the last of my coffee.

“So we have time to kill, what do you want to do?” I asked.

“We could wander around the airport.” Lilly suggested. I shrugged and stood up, we walked out of the small coffee shop and I could feel a change in the air. Like we were being watched by someone or, in our case, something. I glanced around.

“Go in separate directions, Grace the bathroom, Lilly that book shop, I’ll go to the flight board.” I said.

“What! Why?” Grace asked.

“We are being watched, just go. If he (I think it’s a he) fallows you, walk out of the airport, we meet here in one hour, having shaken him or not.” I said. They nodded and did as they were told, I made my way over to the flight board.

“Are you looking for a flight?” A man asked I nodded. “Departure or Arrival.”

“Um Arrival.” I said, the man was in a worker’s uniform and had a chart in his hand.

“Which one?” HE asked.

“Seoul Korea?” I asked, he consulted his chart and then the board.

“Ah, yes, it’s been delayed you have an hours wait.” He pointed to the top of the board. I nodded and walked off.

 

Lilly

 

Lilly walked over to the book shop, there was only one other person there, a boy about her age, dark skin, brown curly hair, and dressed like a junior professor. He turned and bumped into her.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” He said.

“It’s fine.” She apologized. 

“I…” the boy started but yawned in the middle, he looked really tired. 

“Where are you going?” She asked. 

“Um, I need to find Gate 5G for Cairo. I’m Carter by the way.” HE said.

“Well, I know this place like the back of my hand I’ll help you.” She said and lead him off.

“Okay, thanks…” HE said.

“Lilly, my name is Lilly.” She said, he nodded and fell into step behind her, she hoped Shamrock’s plan would work.

 

Grace

 

Since Grace didn’t actually have to use the bathroom she just sat in the stall thinking. She though mostly about what these people wanted from them, but eventually her mind wandered to Shamrock. This connection made things weird, she hadn’t started to hear his thoughts so she assumed it wasn’t that kind of connection, but she did feel an emotional bond. Right now he was anxious. She knew why. She pulled a photo out of her back pack.

“Zoe, I wish you were here.” She whispered, left the stall and went to wash her hands still holding the picture. Two girls were standing out in front of the mirror, one looked about six and the other fourteen of fifteen.

“Who’s Zoe?” The little one asked.

“Angle, honey, we’ve talked about reading people’s minds without asking.” The older one said.

“Max, she said ‘Zoe I wish you were here’ and I’m asking; who’s Zoe?” Angle asked.

“Angle that’s rude.” The older one, Max, snapped.

“No it’s fine, Zoe was my sister, she died three years ago.” She said. 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The Angle girl said and fallowed the one called Max out of the bathroom. Grace checked her watch, she was expected to spend another forty minutes in the bathroom, she rolled her eyes and pulled a brush out of her bag. 

“Might as well do my hair.” She said, ten minutes later she had fishtail braided her hair and then un done it and re done it. “Okay, I guess I will just go find something else to do.” 

Grace walked out of the bathroom and walked right into someone, she fell over and the person bent over to help her.

“Shamrock?” She asked.

“Oh, hi Grace, sorry about that.” He said holding out his hand, she took it and stood up. 

 

Shamrock

 

It was now that I realized I had one of my friends with me, but not the other. I looked around the airport, Lilly was nowhere to be seen. I sighed and started to walk to the book shop.

“Sham, why were you going into the girls bathroom?” Grace asked, I looked at her slightly puzzled 

“Does it really matter, and if you must know I was coming to get you.” I said.

“Shamrock, you can’t just walk into the girls bathroom!” she said, then I felt the need to prove a point so I turned back around and walked towards the bathroom.

“Oh yeah, watch me.” I went straight into the girls bathroom, walked the length of it and came back out. “See, no anti-boy lasers, no nets, nor weaponry, nothing so anyone could stop me.” 

“Shamrock you can’t put weapons in a bathroom, but you can put security cameras in there.” She said.

“Ew gross.” I said because honestly that is weird.

“No, out by the sinks not in the actual stall!” Grace exclaimed as we made our way to the book store again. I looked around but Lilly was nowhere in sighed. 

“Excuse me, was a curly auburn haired girl in here a while ago?” I asked the man and the counter. He glanced over at Grace who was now browsing in the weaponry department.

“Um yeah, she left about thirty minutes ago with a boy.” He told me.

“Hey Sham you might like this one. It’s called The Art of War” Grace said holding up a book, I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the shop, causing her to drop the book in surprise. “Okay maybe not.” 

We walked down the long terminal looking for Lilly, we finally found her walking back towards the meeting place. 

“Lilly where were you?” I asked.

“Helping a boy.” She said.

“Oh my gods, this is a life or death mission, not a place to pick up guys!” I said.

“I was not looking for a date, I just wanted to get out of that stupid book shop.” She rolled her eyes and pulled us towards our gate.` “Where did our stalker go?” 

“I don’t know, but he’s not here.” I said. I was still a bit, jumpy, and by the time I calmed down we were taking our seats, small leather and cramped, oh joy!


	6. Airports, Monuments, and Jet lag OH MY!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very sorry about how late it is, I didn't have internet until Wednesday and then I got sick and everything just snowballed... Anyway here you go chapter 6

Six

Airplanes, Monuments, and Jet Lag Oh my!

The danger sensation is exciting. The challenge is to find new dangers.  
Ayrton Senna

Shamrock 

As soon as the plane was off the ground, Lilly and Grace were both asleep. It was nice that they were getting sleep and all, but did they really have to use my shoulders as pillows? I knew I wouldn’t be able to move, and Lilly had said we couldn’t take the pills until we got on the international flight at around six in the morning (DC time) I also knew that they would be a pain to wake up, so I called the flight attendant to see if I was allowed to open the window.

“No, it might disturb the other passengers.” She said, I nodded, a bit frustrated and she left. I sighed, just because Lilly was by the window didn’t mean I couldn’t open it, but I knew I shouldn’t. It would disturb them both. I turned my attention to the inflight movie they were showing. Some movie about a blue bird and his friends. I sighed, it was going to be a long flight…

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, Grace was waking me up. I sat up and looked around; everyone was preparing to disembark the plane.

“Whoa, what happened?” I asked.

“Um we fell asleep and now we’re landing.” Lilly yawned and passed me my back pack I grabbed it and stood up. Grace was ahead of me and as we got off the plane we were greeted by a large window with a view of the sun rising. 

“Wow, that’s seriously beautiful.” Grace said. I nodded, then I realized where was the city?

“Guys I think we’re on the wrong plane, either that or they moved Washington DC.” I said, Lilly laughed.

“You honestly thought we were flying into DC? There is no international airport in DC, this is Dulles International Airport, the one just outside of DC.” She said.

“Oh, well we have a few hours, can we get a coffee?” I rubbed my eyes. Lilly nodded and we walked away, from the plane. Seeing as we had no other luggage we just walked straight out into the main terminal. We had to make our way to our Gate to Rome before that though. 

Soon we were seated in a small coffee shop, the sleep out of our eyes. Grace took a sip of tea and Lilly sipped her Sprite, I was the only one who actually had coffee but that didn’t matter. Lilly started to dig through her bag. She looked at me.

“Um, I forgot the pills.” She blushed almost the same color as Graces hair. I sighed, I should have been expecting this as our lives had been all to calm for a few hours. 

“Okay so what do we do?” I asked.

“Try to manage our ADHD, and watch a lot of movies.” She suggested. Grace rolled her eyes and stood up.

“I’ll be right back, I’m going to the bookstore to get a book.” She said I nodded and glanced at Lilly.

“That was, off topic.” I said.

“Who knows, maybe it’ll be a useful book.” She shrugged; I waited for Grace to get back in a not-so-patient way. She was gone a full five and a half minutes. When she came back she had a book about Italy. We sat down with it open between us, and looked through the it for the twenty minutes before we had to catch our flight.

This time I sat on the aisle and Lilly sat in the middle, Grace opened to window and looked over the runaway. We started to move faster and faster. Exhausted, I fell asleep again.

I woke screaming, Grace, Lilly, and a terrified flight attendant were bent over me. I was panting and covered in a cold sweat.

“Are you okay?” Grace asked. 

“F-fine.” I nodded. Grace looked up at the flight attendant, who was clearly young, and new to this job.

“Could you bring him some hot green tea?” Grace asked, the flight attendant nodded and walked off clearly relieved to get away from me. Grace and Lilly had switched seats, and Grace reached over and grabbed my hand, as though to reassure me. “What did you dream about?”

“I was in the river again, only this time there was a cold voice saying ‘You can’t save your friends Shamrock, what were you thinking? Playing Hero. Bah! Here’s a tip, don’t be something you’re not.’” I shuttered and the flight attendant brought my tea. I took it and put it on the tray table.

“Shamrock you can be a hero, don’t let them discourage you.” Grace said I looked over at her eyes full of concern. Great, just one more person not to let down. 

“I guess, why tea?” I took a sip and it tasted like dirt.

“Mam used to make us tea when we were upset about something.” She looked away from me “It helps.” 

“Oh, um okay?” I said and rank some more tea. As much as I hated the taste it was calming me down. I looked over at Grace and Lilly, both of which were still looking at me with their eyes full of worry. “What?”

“Nothing, we’re just worried that’s all.” Lilly said. I nodded and leaned back against my seat. I felt Grace’s eyes on me as Lilly went back to her book. 

“What?” I raised my eyebrows and looked at her.

“Shamrock, I know this whole vampire problem is difficult to deal with and our… connection makes it more difficult, but we have to stick together and how can we do that if you won’t tell us why you are so…” She paused, searching for the right word. “…disturbed.” 

“I told you, they told me I couldn’t save my friends.” I said, squirming under her gaze.

“Okay, then but we all know you can.” She kept staring at me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I have had two hundred years of practice getting children to tell me the truth, you are no different.” She glared. 

“Grace if something was bothering, me wouldn’t I tell you?” I asked. “And I am nothing like a child.

“No you wouldn’t tell me, and yes you are no different then my little brother, stubborn and a mule.” She crossed her arms

“Okay true but nothing is upsetting me. I am very different, I’m witty.” I retorted

“Yes, something is bothering you, and that’s called being snarky.” 

“The Volturi don’t count. I am not snarky” I said.

“Yes they do. Sham you insulted the gods, you are snarky.” She argued. I sighed, she was right they did.

“Okay so they creep me out what does that have to do with anything?” I quarried, getting a bit annoyed.

“They creep us all out,” She comforted. “ we just want to know why that has affected you so much.” 

“Okay look, they’ve taken all my friends, sort of, and are holding them captive. I could lose one of you or we could all die.” I said. “I couldn’t live with myself if one of you died.” 

“Shamrock, you can’t be everywhere at once, we can take care of ourselves. You worry about you.” She said. “Now go to sleep.” I nodded and leaned back in my seat. 

I woke to Grace shaking me gently , I blinked a few times and looked out the now open window. The sun was shining and we were descending fast. I sat up and grabbed the bag Grace held out to me. 

“We’re here, now we have to find the one called Alice.” She informed. Lilly was already to disembark so we stood up and walked off the plane. 

I guess I should add the cold to the list of things I hate, right up there with Vampires and peanut butter (Don’t ask, let’s just say Apollo can’t cook) It gets cold in Rome, or at least it was when we were there, and none of us had packed coats. We were still in our hunting clothes. Lilly shuddered,

“It’s really cold.” She said as we exited the airport, Grace shrugged.

“Have you ever been to Northern Ireland?” She asked.

“No.” Lilly shivered.

“Well this is summer in Galway.” Grace pointed out. I thought about that, she was right it got really cold there but I never knew just how cold (I did a paper on it)

“Really?” I asked.

“Why would I lie?” She asked. A girl about, 18 drove up in a yellow sports car. He black hair was short and clean cut, her caramel eyes studied me, and she smelled like vampire.

“Shamrock?” She asked.

“Yep that’s me.” I said

“You’re the ones I saw. Get in.” She said, we climbed in and she drove off like we were being hunted.

“Would you slow down!” I half yelled. 

“What’s the fun in that?” She laughed, I gripped on to my seat and looked at Lilly. “So Lilly how have you been?” Alice said this like it was completely normal.

“Good, how about you?” Lilly asked acting like driving like a madman (Madwoman?) was normal.

“Oh I was great until I saw this poor boy’s fate. Too bad to, he’s such a pretty little thing.” Alice said sadly looking at me. 

“What’s my fate?” I asked.

“I’m sorry dear, I can’t tell you that.” She said, I gripped the seat tighter as she veered into the next lane. “That is for me to know and you to find out. All I can tell you is this; avoid getting to angry.” She said. 

“What does my temper have to do with anything?” I raised my voice a bit.

“If you get to angry, they’ll kill you instantly.” Was her only response. “Now who’s hungry?” 

I had no idea there was a McDonalds in Rome, but there was, so we stopped and got something to go before heading towards Volterra. I sat next to Grace in the back and Lilly sat next to Alice. They were chatting and Grace was looking out the window. 

“This is the closest I’ve been to Ireland since I left on that Hades hole they called a boat.” She spoke up suddenly, I looked at her.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes, and though I miss it, I’ve never cared to go back.” She looked at me, her green eyes full of hurt.

“Why? It was your home.” I said knowing full well that I would give anything to be home again. She shrugged and took out a notebook and drew up a hang man game. 

“You go first.” We spent the next hour playing Hangman in the back of the car before we started to fall asleep, Alice told us to get our sleep as we would be in Volterra in three hours. 

I woke up to Alice bending over me. She smiled at me, a dazzling smile that made me sick. On the bright side I had finally gotten used to her smell. 

“The city is up there, I can’t go any farther, so this is where we say our goodbyes.” She said, I climbed out of the car and sensed we had an hours walk through the forest until we got to the city.

“Bye Alice, take care and tell the other’s we’ll be fine.” Lilly said though not sounding very sure of herself. Alice hugged her tightly.

“I will, good luck.” She they moved to hug Grace who cringed at the contact. “Take care of him.” 

“I will. Don’t worry, he won’t get into any trouble if I’m still capable of keeping him out of it.” Grace said hugging her back in a ‘please-let-go-now’ kind of way. Alice looked me in the eye.

“You keep that temper under control; remember it could get you killed; or worse.” She said and patted my head like I was a little kid.

“I will, tell that Hella girl that Renesmee is not a word; I looked it up in the dictionary. Tell Jake to teach the kid not to bight when she gets angry.” I said “You tell me   
to keep my temper under control but she’s the one who needs the practice.” 

“I’ll try.” She got back in the car and with a wave drove off towards Rome.

The sun was starting to set, and even though I could tell my uncle was pushing it by keeping it up this long. He knew we should not go in that forest after dark. I looked around at my small, cold, and tired group.

“Look I know you’re tired, but we just have to get our friends back. then you guys can sleep all you want.” I told them. Grace yawned and nodded, Lilly just nodded thought it was evident she was starting to get really tired. I didn’t know how much longer before it would be pure adrenaline that kept us going. If we pushed ourselves too hard we could collapse from exhaustion, and that would be a death sentence for us.

We entered the forest and the sky seemed to disappear. It was gloomy and I got this feeling that if we weren’t out of this forest in the next hour or two we would be killed. The whole forest smelled strongly of rotting flesh, and a majority of the trees had red markings on them that looked more like blood then trail markings. Like it was foreshadowing what was to come

“Which way do we go?” Grace asked, “There are trail markings on every other tree in every direction.”

“Grace,”

“What?” 

“Those aren’t trail markings.” 

“What are they?”

“Blood.” 

“Oh.” 

“If we don’t get out of this forest as soon as possible that will be our blood.” I said.

“Oh Joy.” Lilly dead paned “Just what I wanted to be, someone’s breakfast.”

“Dinner.” Grace stated. “It’s dinner here.” 

“Oh yeah, Darviting Jet lag!” 

“Is ‘Darvitting’ a word?” I inquired looking over at Lilly.

“Not in English.” She said vaguely as we began to walk deeper and deeper in to the forest. The deeper we went, the denser the trees got, and the denser the trees   
got the more lost we got. Grace finally decided to climb a tree a few meters a head of us, to see where we were. She got high up then a few minutes later landed on the ground with a dull thud on her back. I ran forward.

“Are you okay?” I asked she was breathing hard. I pulled out my water bottle and handed it to her she drank a few gulps and looked at me.

“I’m fine.” She said after a few minutes.

“That was quite a fall.” Lilly said running up behind me. Grace sat up and looked at us.

“I didn’t fall, I never fall, I was pushed out of the tree.” She said.

“By what?” I asked.

“I don’t know but it was fast. Really fast.” I pulled her to her feet and looked up the tree, there was nothing.

“From now one I want everyone on their guard, it will only get more dangerous the closer to the city we get.” I ordered looking at Lilly and Grace, they both nodded.

“We only have a few minutes of going that way,” Here Grace pointed left “Until we reach the city, but it’s surrounded by a wall and armed guards.”

“Over kill much.” I mumbled.

“Shamrock they know were coming and they can smell us, there is only one other way to get in: By Car.” Grace said. 

We went over to the road and found cars waiting to get in. I asked an American tourist family to take us into the city. They said yes and we got into the back of the car, they were also complete and total idiots. 

How did I know they were American? Well the silver minivan was a big indicator, also the bumper sticker that said “I Heart Texas” was a pretty big hint, but the other thing was that I could hear them talking and singing in the back.

“So why do you need to get into the city?” The mother asked.

“We got, separated from our parents and thought they might be outside the city but they weren’t and we need a car to get in.” I lied.

“Oh we’ll have to remember that.” The mother wrote it down in a little note book. “So are you three siblings?” She asked as they paid a fee to get into the city.

“Yes.” I said making the don’t talk motion at Grace, she narrowed her eyes but nodded. “Thank you Ma’am.” 

We climbed out of the car and they drove off. Grace came up to me and folded her arms over her chest.

“Don’t talk? Really Shamrock?” She said. “You think I haven’t lived in America long enough to mimic the accent?” 

“Can you?” I asked 

“Yes I can, I picked up that skill over many years.” She said angrily. 

“Sorry I didn’t know!” I defended.

“Stop it!” Lilly yelled. “If you two fight this whole quest could fall apart.” I nodded, assuming that at this point it was better to just give up. We walked towards the center of the city. When we came to city square, it was dead, well not literally but it was deserted. I looked up at one building that stood out. It had a coat of arms on the front of the large wooden doors. I looked over at Lilly.

“This has to be it.” I said. “Where else has a huge coat of arms on the door and reeks of death. It’s like they want to scare their pray off.”

“How do we get in? They never let anyone who’s not part of the ‘tour’ in.” Lilly said.

“We provoke them.” I said. “Oldest trick in the book, the easiest way to get in somewhere or someone out of somewhere, is to provoke them.” 

“Um, provoking them is a death wish, do you want to die?” Lilly asked sarcastically.

“Well I never had a great life, how much worse can death be?” I shrugged Grace’s eyes widened.

“Shamrock!” She exclaimed.

“Well, I never have liked being alive, I’m always locked up anyway.” I shot back.

“What if they don’t kill us?” Lilly said. “Would you rather be one of them?”

“No, but either way we have a fifty-fifty chance of living if it came down to a fight.” I pointed out.

“Um, they run their kingdom like ancient Rome. All their soldiers are well oiled and could kill you with a pencil.” Lilly pointed out.

“We don’t have to kill the soldiers, just the leaders because in ancient Rome, if you killed the guy on the horse they surrendered.” I pointed out. 

“You are going to kill a guy who’s been killing since the time of the gods.” She said skeptically, I wrinkled my nose and Grace giggled.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing you just look kind of-Never mind.” Grace suddenly found her feet to be very interesting.

“Okay then. How will we get in if I don’t provoke them?” I asked.

“Walk in, go to the reception desk, tell them we need to see Aro, and beat the crap out of them.” Lilly pulled open the door and walked in.

“Huh? You think they’d have better defenses.” I said.

“Um, no one goes in here unless their part of the tour, no one else is brave enough. You should see what they have inside though.” She pointed out.

“Then why are we doing it?” Grace asked as she trailed somewhat behind us. 

“Because, Shamrock has a death wish, I somehow got tied into this, and you have sisters that need rescuing.” Lilly explained. 

“I know why, but wouldn’t a surprise attack be better?” Grace retorted. 

“They’re the Volturi, they don’t get surprised easily.” Lilly said. 

“Okay here we go. Hi I’m Lilly, this is Shamrock, and Grace.” Lilly said in an overly peppy cheerleader voice.

“Did you wander away from the tour?” The woman at the desk, who’s name tag said ‘Violet’ asked us.

“No, we have to speak to your leader, they took out friends and that does not fly.” Lilly dropped the act and pulled out a dagger.

“Oh you’re the half-bloods, come with me.” She said and Lilly sheathed her dagger, and motioned for us to fallow but I got the feeling we didn’t really have a choice. We got in an elevator and when it opened up, we were in the basement where three occupied thrones were. Just like in my dream there were cages holding the demi-gods, Grace winced. We approached the thrones and I got the feeling I might never seen day light again.

“Hello Shamrock,” The middle one said “We are the Volturi.” 

He said it in such a funny way I couldn’t help but say; “Aren’t those the things I buy in the can from the fat chef?” 

“No you idiot! Those are Raviolis we are the Volturi .” He said the anger apparent in his voice.

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes.” 

“Positive?”

“Shut up!”

“Okay then, someone woke up the wrong side of the bed several thousand years ago!” I mentioned. “Now are you going to let my friends go or not?” 

“No, not until the gods apologize and promise to give me you and the two girls as tribute.” He laughed high, cold and cruel.

“What if I don’t want to be your slave?” I asked.

“Slave? Oh no, I’m getting… thirsty.” He said his red eyes glowing with thirst.

“Oh.” I rubbed my neck.

“Jane, kill them.” He said and a blonde girl stepped out.

“As you wish Aro.” The Jane girl said.

“Hey, hold up.” I said.

“What!” Jane spat.

“Your name is Jane? A vampire named Jane?” I asked.

“Is there a problem.” Jane snarled.

“No, I just thought because your supposedly, the worst person to tangle with in your world you’d have a better name, but hey it’s not your fault.” I provoked. “I mean He’s got Aro, that guy the blonde one, he’s probably got a pretty cool name too, and your stuck with Jane” 

“My name is Marcus.” The blonde guy snarled.

“Never mind that sucks. Anyway you’re stuck with Jane.” I could hear Grace and Lilly suppressing giggle behind me.

“I happen to like my name.” She countered.

“Well it sucks for a vampire. Did you catch the pun?” I asked, that sealed the deal Grace and Lilly burst into laughter.

Then Marcus and a dark haired one came up behind them, they grabbed their shoulders and sniffed them.

“I like this one, she’s got spirit.” Marcus, who was holding Lilly said.

“Very well Marcus then I get this one, her blood smells Irish.” The dark guy said.

“Cauis, Marcus! Don’t play with your food.” Aro said. Before Marcus left Grace alone, he made a mistake, he kissed her neck like he knew where he was going to bite her. That then set of a chain reaction, Grace punched him, and I launched myself at him. 

 

Lilly

 

As Shamrock launched him self at Marcus he changed, first his eyes became more like a wolves, with long slits for pupils then he started to grow fur, finally his clothes disappeared and standing in his place was a large caramel colored wolf. 

“A shape shifter.” A blonde girl in a cage (I think Sham had said her name was Annabeth) whispered.

“What?” I asked.

“Every two hundred years or so a demi-god, or two if they’re twins, rolls around that has the ability to morph into the sacred animal of their godly parent.” Annabeth said. “Since Artemis has never had a child it makes sense for it to be him.” 

“How long has it been happening?” I asked.

“Based on how fast his transformation was, he’s been able to do it since infancy, but Apollo never told him. If he could learn to control it, he could make it work to his advantage.” She said, but then I realized how bad this was.

“Shamrock!” I yelled, they were locked in combat, vampire on wolf.

 

Shamrock

 

I wasn’t in control. Why wasn’t I in control? I was breathing rapidly, I was inside my own head, someone else was in control of me.

“Calm down.” I heard a voice say I glance around, I was in a room with a huge screen that let me see, what whoever was in control was doing.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I said calm down.” The voice asked again, it was female it sounded like…

“Mother?” I Asked.

“Yes Shamrock, it’s me, now calm down.” Mother ordered and I took a few deep breaths.

“Who’s in control of me?” I asked.

“The wild, every bit of it.” She said.

“You were the voice I heard! That first night when we met in the forest!” I explained.

“Last week, that was last week, and yes that was a small part of me, I was entirely unaware of what it was doing.” Mother said.

“Why did the wild take control of me? It’s never happened before.” I said.

“Shamrock this has been happening since you were born, if you got really angry, but you never had anything to protect before so the wild only guided you, now you have something to protect.” She said.

“What could cause this though, the wild to take control of me?” I asked.

“You have something to protect, like I told you.” She sighed.

“Who?” I asked turning to face the direction of the voice, where I saw a my mother standing there.

“Grace, and Lilly. You are fighting to protect them from harm. A common instinct in male wolves.” She said I felt so small, so lost in the world, like a child. I had only had this feeling twice before, but this was what made me human, kind of. 

“Mother, I-“ I started but was cut off by a scream of my name. Then me and the wild were working in perfect synchronization.

 

To kill…


	7. Safe and Sound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just needed to get this one up. Part 2 of Shamrock's tale will start tomorrow.

Seven

Safe and Sound

The test of Courage comes when we’re in minority, the test of tolerance comes when we’re in majority –Ralph W. Sockman

 

Shamrock

 

The whole working in sync with the wild thing, wasn’t working out very well, it wanted control and so did I. Finally I sunk my teeth into its arm,(the vampire tasted horrible but oh well) and ripped it off. He screamed in pain, then Grace got in there beside me and took of the other arm, slowly bit, by bit we ripped him to small bite sized morsels. Lilly dropped a match on him, and in a burst of fire, he was gone.

I felt myself change back, and my clothes reappeared (thank the gods) I was standing next to Grace, who reached out to take my hand.

“We are going to die.” She muttered.

“Probably.” I agreed.

“Escape routes?” She asked.

“None.” 

“We’re doomed.” 

Suddenly the door burst open and small white dog ran into to the room, straight up to me and started barking like crazy.

“Some back up.” Aro said.

“We don’t own a small white dog.” I said, looking at Grace.

“Your mom does.” She said.

“My mom isn’t-“ I started but then my mother burst into the throne room, looking a bit short of breath.

“A hello Artemis nice of you to stop by.” Aro said.

“Aro, let them go or so help me I will kill you.” She said, drawing her bow and aiming it at Aro. 

“Fine, we’ll let your group go.” Aro snarled. Then in a golden flash of light, Apollo, Ares and Athena appeared in the throne room. Apollo was panting like he had run down the stairs but Athena shot him a stop-being-dramatic look.

“All of them.” Ares barked, snapping his fingers and the cages turned to ash. The half-bloods ran out and up the stairs, except for Percy who stayed behind.

“If you want a fight, Ares that’s what you’ll get.” Jane said, laughing coldly.

I heard some commotion then a cry of;“For the gods!” Then a Black Pegasus leapt in, with Aqua and Nico on its back.

“Hey Big brother, catch!” Aqua yelled tossing Percy his pen, Percy caught it, uncapped it, and stood in the fighting position. Nico climbed off the back of the Pegasus and drew his sword.

“Good 10 on 10, fight to the sword point, whichever side gets all their enemies down first wins. Go.” Aro said and they launched into battle. They had the   
demi-gods beat in speed, the four gods could match them, but we couldn’t. I had to count on my instincts to keep Jane from killing me, Grace and Lilly were doing okay, but we were all tired. I could tell Grace and Lilly were running on pure adrenaline. 

Each step became more and more difficult, I was exhausted I couldn’t remember the last time I had been able to stomach a non-fast food meal or slept more than an hour. 

I could see Aqua matching one of the guy’s in sword step, but she was having a hard time with it, she couldn’t beat me, it would be close to impossible to beat him.

Nico had Caius met with armies of skeleton soldiers but using that power was taking a lot out of him. 

Grace was matching each of her vampire’s sword moves with her dagger. It was hard to tell the two of them apart as they each has equally red hair.

Lilly was holding of another dark haired one, he was tiring her quickly, and he definitely had the advantage here; he never tired and she did.

My mom and Uncle were taking on Aro and the other blonde haired one, they had equally fierce fighting styles and were both angry.

Athena was in the form of a large majestic Owl trying to take on the vampire, I could see her advantage, she kept changing size and the vampire kept missing. Well they don’t call her the wisdom goddess for nothing.

Ares was the only one who seemed to really be enjoying himself, he was grinning and had two swords. He was quickly disassembling his vampire.

Even though I saw all of this in a split second it was hard to think that this could be the last time I saw any of them. I could die here. I found the thought strangely   
disturbing. Odd I had always thought of my death as a gift, now all I could think about was staying alive. 

With a clang, time sped up again, and I was fighting Jane with more fire than ever, I felt myself begin to change again, suddenly instead of sword on sword, it became teeth against sword, I managed to get her sword arm off but she grabbed me with the other one and bit down on the shoulder, I made my final act, ripping her to pieces and then the pain started.

It was like fire ripping through my veins, being stabbed a thousand times, being sunburned, and standing under a flow of boiling water all at the same time, I had just enough sanity to make it out of the city and back to the forest, before I collapsed.

 

Grace

 

In the heat of the battle Grace thought she heard the yelp of a dog. She didn’t have time to check what, or who had made the sound, though she was beginning to worry about Shamrock.

“Fine!” Aro cried suddenly, his numbers were down to half now and they looked shaken. “You win, we cannot lose more. Take you demi-gods and leave, but watch it. We will only let this slide once.” Then they were gone, Grace looked around for Shamrock but he was nowhere in sight. She did, however, see a small trail of blood leading up the steps.

She fallowed it, up the stairs, out of the building, and to the city limits; she saw it went into the forest. She took a deep breath and fallowed it.

She was exhausted, but luckily for her she found the end of the trail with in twenty feet of the forest, but what she saw was far worse then she could have imagined. 

Shamrock lay in wolf form, chest heaving, his Carmel fur matted with blood. He was obviously in a lot of pain. Grace approached slowly, not wanting to scare him or cause him to run farther and injure himself more. She knelt next to his head; one metallic green eye looked up at her full of fear. She could hear others coming but wasn’t aware of how long it could take them to find her, as she had wiped up the trail as she walked through the brush. 

Grace put his head in her lap and comforted him like she would an infant, stroking his fur and telling him he would be okay. Grace wasn’t aware of just how long it took Lady Artemis to find them, only of the fact that they were both crying when she did. Soon, she and Artemis were joined by Lilly and Aqua. 

“Lilly, hand me my bag, Grace keep him calm, Aqua go get my brother.” Lady Artemis ordered. Lilly handed her the bag as Aqua ran off to get Apollo. Artemis dug through her bag and pulled out a roll of gauze and vial of silvery liquid Grace recognized as essence of moon lace. Apollo ran up and knelt next to Shamrocks feverish body.

“Okay, Arty, I’m going to clean the cut with nectar, that will get the bacteria out, then I want you to pour the moon lace into the wound- that will get the poison out of his system, then wrap it and hope for the best.” Apollo pulled nectar out of his bag and started to clean the cut…

 

Shamrock

 

I was vaguely aware of Grace kneeling down next to me and pull my head into her lap. She had the awful smell of bloodsucker around her, but I could still smell the faint scent of Lilac on her, it was oddly comforting. Then we were joined by mother who began to give orders. I was in too much pain to comprehend what they were. I then saw the vague outline of Apollo. He began to dab my wound, causing even more pain. I whined.

“I know Sham, just hold on, you’ll be fine I promise.” Grace’s soft voce muttered, I calmed down a bit. Then they went so far as to pour a silvery liquid into it and   
black dots swam in front of my eyes.

 

Grace

It killed her to see anyone in this much pain, but him, it was like the time her little brother, Dickon, had fallen off the roof (god knows why he was up there) and broken his arm, there was no painkiller or anesthesia then so the doctor had to set the bone while he could feel it. She remembered his face distorted in pain and his mouth open in a scream, in a way Shamrock was no different than ten year old Dickon, in pain, scared and unaware of why they had to do this to him. 

She wanted to make it stop, and make him feel better, but at the same time she knew the only way to do that was to let the pain run its course and comfort him as best she could. She tried to fight back tears, crying would only distress him more, but it was difficult, like taking a knife to her heart. 

Finally, after what seemed like decades, Lady Artemis began to wrap the wound. Shamrock heaved a sigh of relief. Once she saw him relax she felt her own muscles relax, he would be okay, for now anyway.

“Okay, we should get him home. I’ll carry him to the chariot.” Apollo lifted his still form from Grace’s arms “Grace come with me.” She obediently fallowed him to his chariot, which had changed to a minivan. “Get in, on the far side; I’m going to put his head on your lap.” She obeyed and let Apollo put him in the back with her.

“Why did you ask me to come?” She asked as Apollo climbed in the driver’s seat and revved the engine. 

“I needed to talk to you, and someone has to keep him calm. You were the best bet, seeing as my sister has to get the hunters to camp.” He explained.

“What about?” She asked as she resumed petting him. 

“This connection,” He started, she could see it was troubling him deeply. “I can see it causing problems for you two in the future, and I want it to be terminated as quickly as possible.”

“What kind of problems and how do we terminate the connection?” She asked.

“Well as far as problems go I only see a Fire, you yelling at each other in the forest, and the you, Sham and Lilly standing around a fire, Artemis is holding a baby, Shamrock is angry.” Apollo said “The baby could be Arty’s, but it is in some way connected to Sham, no doubts about that.” 

“How would this cause problems?” She asked.

“Grace, Sham has been an only child for a long time, unlike you who had thirteen brothers and sisters, if Arty had another, or adopted, or whatever it could mess him up.” Apollo looked in the mirror at Sham who was asleep in the back.

“Okay, I’m fallowing.” She said.

“Well the connection, I can’t figure out how to terminate. I could talk to Aphrodite but if you two developed this without her help, then it would be almost impossible.” He sighed.

“But how could we have developed this connection on our own, I just don’t get it!” Grace half yelled, obviously exasperated.

“Grace people change, especially when they are fighting to keep each other alive. That river incident finished a bonding bridge, you are connected in some way, emotionally most likely.” He explained.

“Okay, but why didn’t this happen with Lily, or Aqua?” She asked.

“Well Aqua is still much too young and Lilly, well I don’t know.” He siad, but he was hiding something, Grace was sure of it.

“What about Zoe?” She asked.

“Well Zoe had fought off love for so long that it was impossible for the connection to reach her, he was reaching out for someone and you were too, subconsciously of course, but you were still reaching out, so inevitably you two connected.” Apollo said.

“Oh. What if we didn’t want to terminate it?” She asked.

“This is between the two of you, so it’s your decision, but like I said it may not even be possible.” Apollo answered.

“If it is?” She whispered.

“Then it’s up to the two of you.” He repeated as they reached the house. Apollo lifted Sham out and Grace crawled out of the car, she could see the forest in one   
direction, and a cliff where she could hear the ocean in the other. She had never really looked around his home when she was here before, it was gorgeous. “Coming?” Apollo grunted under the weight of Shamrock and the door, which he was holding open. 

Grace ran up the steps and held the door open for Apollo; he walked in and set Shamrock on the couch. Lady Artemis ran in just as Shamrock phased back and woke up.

 

Shamrock

I woke up to Grace bending over me. I sat up and engulfed her in a hug.

“Grace.” I breathed, then my mom ran in and I let go of her and blushed.

“Oh Sham Your safe.” Mother said engulfing me in a hug, she smelled sweet and comforting, I was safe… 

Several hours later I woke again, I must have fallen asleep while my mother was hugging me, Grace’s hair was wet and the scent of death had been washed off of her and her sweet scent of Lilacs had returned. I smiled and she looked at me a soft smile gracing her face. Lilly was on the couch next to her reading a book, when she saw me she grinned.

“Evening Sham.” She said. 

“Hi Lilly. Why are you here?” I asked. I saw that the hunters were spread out on the floor watching Harry Potter they turned and looked at me, smiling. 

“Good, you’re alive.” Thalia said the others nodded and smiled.

“Yeah, but what is that horrid stench?” I asked.

“Ah yes that would be, your wound, it has an odd smell but that would be the venom seeping out of your cut, we have to change the bandages every few hours.” Lilly explained.

“Ouch. So that horrible pain was real?” I shuddered. 

“Yes but it saved your life, Grace found you though, she was quite distressed, it took us four and a half hours to convince her she needed to shower and that you would be fine.” Lilly teased, Grace turned a light shade of red and held out a plate to me.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Mash Potatoes.” Grace said, I took a bite but didn’t really care how they tasted, I was so hungry she could have handed me raw meat and I would have eaten it. My mom came in and hugged me again.

“Good you’re awake.” She said. “Lilly are you ready?” 

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Shamrock, our quest is over, it’s time for me to go home.” Lilly said, hugging me and standing up. “Here this is my phone number, you can call on any day, as long as the hour is reasonable.” 

“Okay here, this is mine.” I said grabbing a slip of paper of the table and writing down my number. I looked at the slip of paper Lilly had given to me.

“Grace, make sure he doesn’t get in too much trouble.” Lilly grinned

“I won’t, bye!” Grace said hugging Lilly before she and my mother walked out the door. I looked at the hunters all spread out on the floor, they looked clean and safe. 

“I’m going to shower, I’ll be back.” I said and went up to my room. I looked around.

The walls were a light green and the bed had simple green sheets and a comforter. The dresser was small and held all my clothes in two drawers. Only one thing was new.

“Grace, why are there sleeping bags on my floor?” I yelled down the stairs.

“Oh, I forgot, Apollo’s letting us stay here tonight.” Grace yelled.

“Where do I sleep?” I asked.

“The bed, genius!” Thalia called. I sighed and went up to shower. As the hot water ran over me I had some time to think. I was safe at the moment, I had a family, I was loved. For once in my life I was safe and sound. I thought about that as I got dressed and went down stairs. I looked around and sighed. Safe and sound, that sounded, nice…

The End (For now)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading about Shamrock and his friends crazy adventure, just wait until next time. 
> 
> -Ginny


End file.
